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THE 



BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY, 



AN INQUIRY 






■<^:/ 



PATRIARCH A li Ai^B MOSAIC SYSTSMg 



ON THE SUBJECT OF 



HUMAN RIGHTS 



Y/ 



^ CONTENTS, 

Dofinltion of Slavery ... - - 3 

Man-stcaling — Examination of Ex. xxi. 16 - - - 9 

Import of " Bought with money," etc. - - - 15 

Rights and privileges of servants - - - - 21 

No involuntary servitude under the Mosaic system - - 24 

Servants were paid wages - - - - - 31 

Masters, not owners . . - . - 36 

Servants distinguished from property • - - - 38 

Social equality of servants with their masters - - - 40 

Condition of the Gibeonites, as subjects of the Hebrew Commonwealth - 41 

Egyptian bondage analyzed .... 43 

ODJECTIOHS CONSIDERED. 

" Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be," etc. Gen. ix, 25 47 

" For he is his money," Examination of, Ex. xxi. 20, 21 - - 52 

"-Bondmen and bondmaids" bought of the heathen. Lev. xxv. 44— 4G 54 

♦' They shall be your bondmen forever." Lev. xxv. 46 . - 56 

«' Ye shall take them as an inheritance," etc. Lev. xxv. 46 . .58 

The Israelite to servo as a hired servant. Lev. xxv. 39, 40 - CO 

Difference between bought and hired servants - - - Gl 

Bought servants the most privileged class ... 61 

Summary of the different classes of servants - - - 70 

Disabilities of the servants from the heathen . - - 72. 

Examination of Ejiodus xxi. 2 — 6 . - • .73 

The Canaanitcs not ssntcnccd to un*con Jitional extermination - « 5 



INQUIRY, &c. 



The spirit of slavery never takes refuge in the Bible of its own ac- 
cord. The horns of t!-ie altar are its last resort. It seizes them, if at 
all, only in desperation — rushing from the terror of the avenger's arm. 
Like other unclean spirits, it " hateth the light, neither cometh to the 
light, lest its deeds should be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its 
conflicts with conscience and common sense, denied all quarter, and 
hunted from every covert, it breaks at last into the sacred enclosure, 
and courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest, and finding none." 
The law of love, streaming from every page, flashes around it an 
omnipresent anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and 
howls under the consuming touch, as demons recoiled from the Son of 
God, and shrieked, " Torment us not." At last, it slinks away among 
the shadows of the Mosaic system, and thinks to burrow out of sight 
among its types and shadows. Vain hope ! Its asylum is its sepulchre ; 
its city of refuge, the city of destruction. It rushes from light into the 
sun ; from heat, into devquriijg fire ; and from the voice of God into 
the thickest of His thunder?. 

DEFINITION OF SLAVERY. 

If we would know whether the Bible is the charter of slavery, we 
must first determine jM6'i what slavery is. The thing itself must be sepa- 
rated from Its appendages. A constituent element is one thing ; a rela- 
tion another ; an appendage another. Relations and appendages pre- 
suppose other things, of which there are relations and appendages. To 
regard them as the things to which they pertain, or as constituent parts 
of them, leads to endless fallacies. A great variety of conditions, rela- 
tions, and tenures, indispensable to the social state, are confounded 
with slavery ; and thus slaveholding is deemed quite harmless, if not 
virtuous. We will specify some of the things which are often confound- 
ed with slaverv. 



1. Privation of the right, of suffrage. Then wimor* are slaves. 

2. IneUgibditii to office. Then females are slaves. 

3. Taxation without representation. Then three-fourths of the peo- 
ple of Rhode Island are slaves, and all'm the District.of Columbia. 

4. Privation of one^s oath in law. Then ihafree colored people of 
Ohio are slaves, so are disbelievers in a future retribution, generally. 

5. Privation of trial by jury. Thenall in France and Germany are 
slaves. 

6. Bein g required to support a particular religion. Then the people 
of England are slaves. [To the preceding may be added all other dis- 
abilities, merely jyolitical.'] 

7. Cruelty and oppression. Wives are often cruelly treated ; hired 
domestics are often oppressed ; but these forms of oppression are not 
slavery. 

8. Apprenticeship. The rights and duties of master and apprentice 
are correlative and reciprocal. The clai7n of each upon the other re- 
sults from the obligation of each to the other. Apprenticeship is based 
on the principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the 
apprentice are secured, and his interests are promoted equally with 
those of the master. Indeed, while the law of apprenticeship is just to 
the master, it is benevolent to the apprentice. Its main design is rather 
to benefit the apprentice than the master, h promoles the interests 
of the former, while it guards from injury those of the latter in < < ng 
it. It secures to the master a mere legal compensation, while it 
secures to the apprentice both a legal compensation, and a virtual gra- 
tuity in addition, the apprentice bfing of the two decidedly the greatest 
gainer. The law not only recognizes the right of the apprentice to a 
reward for his labor, but appoints tiie wages, and enforces the payment. 
The master's claim covers only the services of the apprentice. The 
apprentice's claim covers equally the services of the master. The mas- 
ter cannot hold the apprentice as property, nor the apprentice the mas- 
ter ; but each holds property in the services of the other, and both 
EQUALLY. Is this slavery ? 

9. Filial subordination and parental claims. Both are nature's dic- 
tates, and indispensable to the existence of the social state ; their design 
the promotion of mutual welfare ; and the means, those natural atTec- 
tions created by the relation of parent and child, and blending them in 
one by irrepressible affinities ; and thus, while exciting each to discharge 
those ofHces incidental to the relation, they constitute a shield for mutual 
protection. The parent's legal claim to the services of his children, 
vhile minors, is a, slight boon for the care and toil of their rearicgj to 



say nothing of outlays for support and education. This provision fof 
the good of the whole, is, witli the greater part of mankind, indispensa- 
ble to the preservation of the family slate. The child, in helping liis pa- 
rents, helps himself — increases a common stock, in which he has a 
share ; while his most faithful services do but acknowledge a debt that 
money cannot cancel. 

10. Bondage for crime, or govermental claims on criminals. Must 
innocence be punished because guilt suffers penalties ? True;, the crimi- 
nal works for the government witiiout pay ; and well he may. He 
owes ihe government. A century's work would not pay its drafts on 
him. He is a public defaulter, and will die so. Because laws make 
men pay tlieir debts, shall those be forced to pay who oice nothing ? 
Besides, the law makes no criminal, pkopertv. It restrains his liberty ; 
it makes him pay something, a mere penny in the pound, of his debt to 
the government ; but it does not make him a chattel. Test it. To 
own property is to own its product. Are children born of convicts 
government property ? Besides, can property be gwltij ? Arc chattels 
punished 1 

11. Restrictions upon freedom. Children are restrained by parents, 
■wards by guardians, pupils by teachers, patients by physicians and 
nurses, corporations by charters, and legislators by constitutions. Em- 
bargoes, tariffs, quarantine, and all other laws, keep men from doing as 
they please. Restraints are the web of civiliz<?d society, warp and woof. 
Are they slavery ? then civilized society is a mammoth slave — a govern- 
ment of LAW, the climax of slavery, and its executive a king among 
slaveholders. 

12. Involuntary or compulsory service. A juryman is empannelled 
against his will, and sit he must. A sheriff orders his posse ; bystanders 
must turn in. Men are compelled to remove nuisances, pay fines and 
taxes, support their families, and " turn to the right as the law directs," 
however much against their wills. Are they therefore slaves? To 
confound slavery with involuntary service is absurd. Slavery is a con- 
dition. The slave's feelings toward it, are one thing ; the condition 
itself, the object of these feelings, is another thing ; his feeiings cannot 
alter the nature of that condition. Whether he desire or detest it, the 
condition remains the same. The slave's willingness to be a slave is no 
palliation of his master's guilt in holding him. Suppose the slave verily 
thinks liimself a chattel, and consents that others may so regard him, 
does that malce him a chattel, or make those guiltless who hold him as 
such ? I mav bo sick of life, and I tell the assassin so that stabs me ; is 



he any the less a murderer because I consent to be made a corpse ? 
Does my partnership in his guilt blot out his part of it? If the slave 
were willing to be a slave, his voluntariness, so far from lessening the 
guilt of the "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has so palsied his mind 
and he looks upon himself as a chattel, and consents to be 6ne, actually 
te hold him as such, falls in with his delusion, and confirms the impious 
falsehood. These veryjeelings and convictions of the slave, (if such 
were possible) increase a hundred fold the guilt of the master in holding 
him as property, and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recog- 
nize him as a man, and thus break the sorcery that binds his soul, 
cheating it of its birth-right, and the consciousness of its worth and des- 
tiny. 

Many of the foregoing conditions and relations are appendages of 
(Slavery, and some of them inseparable from it. But no one, nor all of 
them together, constiliite its intrinsic'uni hanging element. 

We proceed to state affirmatively that, 

Enslaving men is reducing them to articles of profbrty, making 
free agents chattels, converting jjerson* into things, sinking intelligence, 
accountability, immortality, into merchandize. A slave, is one held in 
this condition. He is a mere tool for another's use and benefit. In law 
"he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." His right to himself is 
abrogated. He is another's property. If he say my hands, my feet, my 
body, my mind, MYself they are figures of speech. To use himself 
for his own good is a cri^ie. To keep what he earns is stealing. To 
take his body into his own keeping is insurrection. \h a Word, xhepro. 
fit of his master is the end of his being, and he, a mere mean's to that end, 
a mere means to an end into which his interests do not enter, of which 
they cohst'ilute no portion.* Mak sunk to a thing! the intrinsic'ele- 
ment, the prmc/p?e of slavery ; men sold, bartered, leased, mortgaged, 
bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on ex- 
ecutions, and knocked off at public outcry ! Their rights another's con- 

* Whatever system sinl(S man from an end to a mean*, or in other words, wliatever trans- 
forms him from an object 0/ instrumentality into a mere insti-umentality to an object, just so 
far makes him a slave. Hence West India apprenticeship retains in one particular the cardi- 
nal principle of slavery. The apprentice, during three-fourihs of his time, is still forced to 
labor, and robbed of his earnings ; just so far forth he is a mere means, n slave. True, in all 
other respects, slavery is abolished in the Bnli.sh West Indies. Its bloodiest features are 
blotted out — but the meanest and most despicable ol all — forcing the poor to work for 
the ri;h without pay three-fourths ol tlieir time, with a legal officer to flog them if 
they demur at the outrage, is one of the provisions of the " Emancipation Act I" For 
the glories of that luminarj-, aboliiionisls thank God, while they mourn that it rose behind 
clouds, and shines through an oclipse. 



veniences, their interests, wares on sale, their happiness, a household 
utensil ; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable article, or 
playthixng, as best suits the humor of the hour; their deathless nature, 
conscience, social affections, sympathies, hopes, marketable commodi- 
ties ! We repeat h, the reduclion of persons to things; not robbing a 
man of privileges, but oi" himself ; not loading with burdens, but making 
him a beast of burden ; not restraining liberty, but subverting it ; not 
curtailing rights, but abolishing them ; not inflicting personal cruelty, 
but annihilating personality ; not exacting involuntary labor, but sinking 
him into an implevient of labor ; not abridging his human comforts, but 
abrogating his human nature ; not depriving an animal of immunities, 
but despoiling a rational being of attributes, uncreating a man to make 
room for a thing ! 

That this is American slavery, is shown by the laws of slave states. 
Judge Stroud, in his " Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery," says, 
" The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked 
among sentient beings, but among things — is an article of property, a 
chattel personal, obtains as undoubted law in all of these states," (the 
slave states.) The law of South Carolina thus lays down the principle, 
" Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to 
be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and 
their executors, administrators, and assigns, to all intents, construc- 
TiONS, AND PURPOSES WHATSOEVER." Brevard's Digest, 229. In Louisi- 
ana, " a slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he be- 
longs ; the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and 
his labor ; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thino- 
but what must belong to his master." Civil Code of Louisiana, 
Art. 35. 

This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a person 

and a thing, trampled under foot — the crowning distinction of all oihers 

their centre and circumference — the source, the test, and the measure of 
their value — the rational, immortal principle, embalmed by God in ever- 
lasting remembrance, consecrated to universal homage in a baptism of 
glory and honor, by the gift of His Son, His Spirit, His Word, His 
presence, providence, and power ; His protecting shield, upholding staff, 
and sheltering wing ; His opening heavens, and angels ministering, and 
chariots of fire, and songs of morning stars, and a great .voice in hea- 
ven, proclaiming eternal sanctions, and confirming the word with signs 
following. 

Having stated the principle of American slavery, we ask. 



Does the Bible sanction such a pkinciple ?* To the hw and the 
testhnotiy. First, the moral law, or the ten cotnmandments. Just afier 
the Israelites were emancipated fiom their bondage in Egypt, while they 
stood before Sinai to receive the law, as the trumpet waxed louder, and 
tho mount quaked and bliized, God spake the ten commandments from 
the midst of clouds and thunderings. Two of those cotumandinents 
deal death to slavery. Look at the eighth, " Tkou shall not steal," or> 
thou shalt not take from another what belongs to him. All man's pow- 
ers of body and mind are God's gift to him. That they are his own, 
and that he has a right to them, is proved from the fact that God has 
given them to him alone, that each of tiiem is a part o^ himself , and all 
of them together consi/7u/e himself. All else that belongs to man is 
acquired by the use of these powers. The interest belongs to him> 
because the principal does — the product is his, because he is the produ- 
cer. Ownership of any tiling is ownership of its use. The right to 
use according to will, is ^7se//' ownership. The eighth commandment 
presupposes and assumes the right of every man to his poioers, and their 
product. Slavery robs of both. A man's right to himself is the only 
right, absolutely original and intrinsic — his right to whatever else that 
belongs to him is merely relative to his right to himself — is derived from 
it, and held only by virtue of it. Self-right is the foundation right — 
ihe post in the middle, \o which all other rights are fastened. Slave- 
holders, the world over, when talking about their right to their slaves-, 
always assume their own right to themselves. What slavehcjlder ever 
undertook to prove his own right to himself? He knows it to be a self- 
evident proi:os:tion, that a man belongs to himself — that the right is in- 
trinsic and absolute. The slaveholder, in making out his ovvn title to 
himself, makes out the title of every human being to himself. As the fact 
of beinga?«fln is itself the title, the whole human family have one com. 
nion title deed. Hone man's tide is valid, aZ^ are valid. If one is 
worthless, all are. To deny the validity of the slaveys title is to deny 
the validity of his own ; and yet in the act of making him a slave, the 
slaveholder asserts the validity of his own title, while he seizes him as 
his property who has the same tide. Further, in making him a slave, 

* The Bible record of actions is no comment on their moral character. It vouches for 
them AS facts, not ^s virtues. It records without rebuke, No.ih's drunkenness, Lol's incest, 
and the lies of Jacob and his mother— net only single acts, but usages, such as polygamy 
and concubinage, iire entered on the record without censure. Is that Hlent entry God's en- 
dorsement? Because the Bible, in its catalogue of human actions, does not stamp on every 
crime its name and number, and write again»t It, this U a crime— does that wa«li out Us 
suilt, and bleacb il into a virtue ? 



he does not merely unhumanize one individual, but universal man. He 
destroys tlie foundations. He annihilates «// rights. He attacks not 
only tiie human race, but universal being, and rushes upon Jehovah. — 
For rights are rights ; God's are no more — man's are no less. 

The eighth commandment forbids the taking of any part of that which 
belongs to another. Slavery lakes the ro/to/e. Does the same Bible 
which forbids the taking of any thing bejonging to him, sanction the 
taking of ejjerj/ thing ? Is it such a medley of absurdities as to ihun- 
der wrath against him who robs his neighbor of a cent, while it bids 
God speed to him who robs his neighbor of /i/mse//'? Slavery is the 
highest possible violation of the eighth commandment. To take from a 
man his earnings, is theft. But to take the earner, h compound, super- 
lative, perpetual theft. It is to be a thief by prafessiqn. It is a trade, 
a life of robbery, that vaults through all the gradations of the climax at 
a leap — the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers among other rob- 
beries, a solitary horror, monarch of the realm. The eighth command, 
ment forbids the taking away, and the tenth adds, •' Thou shall not 
COVET any thing that is thy neighbor's ;" thus guarding every man's 
right to himself and his property, by making not only the actual taking 
away a sin, but even that state of mind which would teiipt lo it. Who 
ever made human beings slaves, or held them as slaves without coveting 
them ? Why do they take from them their time, their labor, their liberty, 
their right of self-preservation and improvement, tlieir right to acquire 
property, to worship according to conscience, to search the Scriptures, 
to live with their families, and their right to their own bodies ? Why do 
they take them, if they do not desire them ? They covet them for 
purposes of gain, convenience, lust of dominion, of sensual gratification, 
of pride and ostentation. They break the tenth commandment, and 
pluck down upon their heads the plagues that are written in the book. 
Ten commandments constitute the brief compend of human duty. Two 
of these brand slavery as sin. 

The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promulga- 
tion of that body of laws and institutions, called the " Mosaic system." 
Over the gateway of that system, fearful words were written by the 
fing(n- of God — " He that stealeth a man and selletu him, or if 

HE BE FOUND IN HIS HAND, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH." See 

Exodus, xxi. 16. 

The oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and the wonders wrought 
for their deliverance, proclaim the reason for such a law at such a time — 
when the body politic becume a theocracy, and revereiitly waited fo.r 



10 

tho will of God. They had just been emancipated. The tragedies of 
their house of bondage were the realities of yesterday, and peopled their 
memories with thronging horrors. They had just witnessed God's tes- 
timony against oppression in the plagues of Egypt — the burning blains 
on man and beast — the dust quickened into loathsome life, and cleaving 
in swarms to every living thing — the streets, the palaces, the temples, 
and every house heaped up with the carcasses of things abhorred — even 
the kneading troughs and ovens, the secret chambers and the couches, 
reeking and dissolving with the putrid death — the pestilence walking in 
darkness at noonday, the devouring locusts and hail mingled with fire, 
the first-born death-struck, and the waters blood, and, last of all, that 
dread high hand and stretched out arm, that whelmed the monarch and 
his hosts, and strewed their corpses in the sea. All this their eyes had 
Ipoked upon, — earth's proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying 
in desolation, and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the 
hand writing of God, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood — a 
blackened monument of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of 
nien. 

No wonder that God, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at 
such a time, should light up on its threshold a blazing beacon to flash 
terror on slaveholders. " He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if 
he be found in his hand, he shall be surely put to death." Ex. xxii. 16. 
God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Mo- 
saic system ! See also Deut. xxiv. 7.* 

The Hebrew word, Gaunah, here rendered stealeth, means the taking 
from another what belongs to him, whether it be by violewce or fraud ; 
the same word is used in the eighth commandment, and prohibits both 
robbery and theft. 

The crime specified is that of depriving somebody of the ownership 
of a man. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of de- 
priving a master oi \\\s servant ? Then it would have been " he that 
stealeth" a servant, not " he that stealeth a man." If the crime had been 
the taking of an individual from another, then the term used would have 
been expressive of that relation, and most especially if it was the rela- 
tion of property and proprietor ! 

* Jurchi, the most eminent, of the" Jewish writers, (if we except perhaps the Egyp- 
tian Maimonidis,) who wrote seven hundred years ago, m his comment on this stealing and 
miking merchandize of men, gives the meaningthus ; — "Using a man against his will, as a 
servant lawfully purchased ; yea, though he should use his services ever so little, only to the 
value of a farthing, or use but his arm to lean on to support him, if he be forced so to act as a 
seroant, the person compelling him but once to do so shall die as a thief, whether he has sold 
liirn Of not ■' 



11. 

The crime, as stated in the passage, is three-fold — man stealing^ 
selling and holding. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one 
penalty — DEATH. This somebody deprived of the ownership of 
man, is the man Jmnself, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said 
to the servants of Pharoah, " Indeed I was stolen away out of the land 
of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How stolen ? His brethren took him 
and sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast this penalty for 
nian-stealing with that for proverly-steaYmg. Exod. xxii. If a man 
stole an ox and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen ; if he 
had neither sold nor killed it, ihe penalty was two oxen. The selling or 
the killing being virtually a deliberate repetition of the crime, the penalty 
was more than doubled. 

But in the case of stealing a 7nan, the first act drew down the utmost 
power of punishment ; however often repeated, or however aggravated 
the crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty 
for man-stealing was death, and the penalty for j^roper^^-stealing, the 
mere restoration of double, shows that the two cases were adjudicated 
on totally different principles. The man stolen might be past labor, and 
his support a burden, yet death was the penalty, though not a cent's 
worth o( property value was taken. The penalty for stealing properly 
was a mere property. penalty. However large the amount stolen, the 
payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a greater 
money value than a thousand men, yet death was never the penalty, nor 
maiming, nor branding, nor even stripes. Whatever the kind, or the 
amount stolen, the unvarying penalty was double of the same kind. 
Why was not the rule uniform? When a man was slolen why not re- 

uire the thief to restore double of the same kind— two men, or if he 
had sold hlm.fve men ? Do you say that the man-thief might not have 
them ? So the ox-thief might not have two oxen, or if he had killed il,f.ve. 
But if God permitted men to hold ?nen as property, equally with oxen, 
the man-thief could get men with whom to pay the penalty, as well as 
the ox-thief, oxen. 

Further, when property was stolen, the whole of the legal penalty 
was a compensation to the person injured. But when a man was 

stolen, no property compensation was offered. To tender money as an 
equivalent, would have been to repeat the outrage wilh the intolerable 
aggravations of supreme insult and iinpiety. Compute the value of a 
MAN in jnoney ! Throw dust into the si^ale against immortality ! The 
)aw recoiled from such outrage and blasphemy. To hrive permitted 
the man-thief to expiate his crime bv restoring double, would hav« 

2' 



12 

been making the repctilion of crime its atonement. But the infliction 
of dealh for man-stealing exacted from the guiily wretch the uim.ost 
possibility of reparation. It wrung from him, as he gave up the ghost, 
a testimony in blood, and death^groans, to the infinite dignity and 
worth of man, — a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, 
that MAN IS INVIOLABLE, — a confcssion shrieked in phrenzy at the 
grave's mouth — " I die accursed, and God is just." 

If God permitted man to hold man as property, why did he punish 
for stealing that kind of property infinitely more than for stealing any 
other kind of property ? Why did he punish with death for stealing a 
very little, perhaps not a sixpence worth, of that sort of property, and 
make a mevejine, the penalty for stealing a thousand limes as much, of 
any other sort of property — especially if God did by his own act anni- 
hilate the difference between man and property, by putting him on a 
level with it ? 

The atrociousness of a crime, depends greatly upon the nature, cha- 
racter, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the 
thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from nfull man, is 
theft ; to steal it from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I 
steal my neighbor's proper/?/, the crime consists not in the nature of the 
article, but in shifting its external relation from him to me. But when 
1 take my neighbor himself, and first make him property, and then my 
property, the latter act, which was the sole crime in the former case, 
dwindles to a mere appendage. The sin in stealing a man does not 
consist in transferring, from its owner to another, that which is already 
property, but in tmuing personality \nio property . True, the attributes 
of man still remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of 
them are annihilated. It is the first law of reason and revelation to 
regard things and beings as they are ; and the sum of religion, to feel 
and aci toward them according to their nature and value. Knowingly 
to treat them othersvise, is sin ; and the degree of violence done to their 
nature, relations, and value, measures its guilt. When tilings are sun- 
dered which Goa has indissolubly joined, or confounded in one, which 
he has separated by infinite extremes ; when sacred and eternal distinc- 
tions, which he has garnished with glory, are derided and set at nought, 
then, if ever, sin reddens in its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the pas- 
sage, is that of doing violence to the nature of a ?nan — his intrinsic 
value and relations as a rational being, and blotiing out the exalted dis- 
tinction stamped upon him by his Maker. In the verse preceding, 
find in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, 



i3 

^' He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.^^ 
Verse 17, " He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put 
to death." If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in 
return. But if that same blow were given to a parent, the law struck 
the smiter dead. Why this difference in the punishment of the same 
act, iniiicted on different persons ? Answer — God guards the parental 
relation with peculiar care. It is the centre of human relations. To 
violate that, is to violate all. Whoever trampled on that, showed that 
no relation had any sacredness in his eyes — that he was unfit to move 
among human relations who had violated one so sacred and tender. — 
Therefore, the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished 
the ghastly terror around the parental relation to guard it from im- 
pious inroads. 

But why the difference in the penalty since the act was the same ? 
The sin had divers aggravations. 

1. The relation violated was obvious — the distinction between pa- 
rents and others, manifest, dictated by natural affection — a law ofthe 
constitution. 

2. The act was violence to nature — a suicide on constitutional sus- 
ceptibilities. 

3. The parental relation then, as now, was the centre of the social 
system, and required powerful safe-guards. " Honor thy father and 
thy mother," stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the 
duties of man to man ; and, throughout the Bible, the parental relation 
•is God's favorite illustration, of his own relations to the whole family of 
man. In this case, death is inflicted not at all for the act of smiting, 
nor for smiting a 7uan, but a parent — for violating a vital and sacred re- 
lation — a distinction cherished by God, and around which, both in the 
moral and ceremonial law, He threw up a bulwark of defence. In the 
next verse, " He that stealeth a man,"' &c., the same principle is 
wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime here punished with 
death, is not the mere act of taking property from its owner, but the 
disregarding of fundamental relations, doing violence to an immortal 
nature, making war on a sacred distinction of .priceless worth. That 
distinction which is cast headlong by the principle of American slavery, 
which makes men " chattels." 

The incessant pains-taking throughout the Old Testament, in the se- 
paration of human beings from brutes and things, shows God's regard 
for the sacredness of his own distinction. 



14 

" In the beginning" the Lord uttered it in heaven, and proclaimed ii 
to the universe as it rose into being. He arrayed creation at the in. 
stant of its birth, to do it reverent homage. It paused in adoration while 
He ushered forth ils crowning work. Why that dread pause, and that 
creating arm held back in mid career, and that high oonference in tho 
godhead ? " Let us mike man in our image, offer our likeness, and 
LET HIM HAVE DomuioTi ovcr the Jish of the seo, and over the fowl of 
the air, arid over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every living 
thing that moveth upon the earth." 

Tlien while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and 
marsh-illed worlds, waited to catch and swell the shoat of morning stars 

THEN '' God CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE. 1n THE IMAGE OF GoD 

CREATED HS HIM." This soIves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF 
GOD CREATED HE HIM. Well might the sons of God cry all 
together, " Amen, alleluia" — '^ Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive 
blessing and honor" — " For thou Inst mxde him a little lower thin the 
angels, and hast crowned him iviih glory and honor. Thou landest him 
to ha'-^e dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things 
under his feet. O Lord, oar Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the 
earth." Psalms viii. 5, 6, 9. The frequent and solemn repetition of 
this distinction by God proclaims his infinite regard. The 26th, 27th, 
and 29lh verses of the 1st chapter of Genesis are little else than the re- 
petition of it in various forms. In the 5th chapter, 1st verse, we find 
it again — " In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God 
MADE HE MAN." In the 9th chapter, 6th verse, we find it again. After 
giving license to shed the blood of" every moving thing that liveth," it 
is added, " Whoso sheddeth man''s Mood, by man shall his blood be shed, 
for IN THE IMAGE OF GoD MADE HE MAN." As though he had Said, "All 
these other creatures are your property, designed for your use — they 
have the likeness of earth, they perish with the using, and their spirits 
go downward ; but this other being, man, has my own likeness : in the 
Image of God made I man ; an intelligent, moral, immortal agent, invi- 
ted to all that, I can give and he crm be." So in Levit. xxiv. 17, 18, 
" He that killeth any man shall surely he put to death ; and he that kill- 
eth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast ; and he that killeth a man 
shall be put to death." So in the passage quoted above, Ps. viii. 5, 6. 
What an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinit'dy, men from 
brutes and things ! 

1. " Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels," Slavery 
drags him down among brutes. 



15 

2. " And hast crowned him with glory and honor." Slavery tears 
off his crown, and puts on a yoke. 

3. "■Thoumadesl him to have dominion over the works of thy hands ." 
Slavery breaks his sceptre, and casts him down among those works — 
yea, beneath them. 

4. " Thou hast put all things under hisjeel." Slavery puts him 
under the- feet of an owner, with beasts and creeping things. Who, but 
an impious scorner, dare thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate his 
IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith to those that grind his 
poor, " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did 
it unto me." 

But time would fail us to detail the instances in which this distinction 
is most impressively marked in the Bible. 

In further prosecuting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic sya- 
tems will be considered together, as each reflects liglit upon the other, 
and as many regulations of the latter are mere legal forms of Divine 
institutions previously existing. As a systein, however, the latter alone 
is of Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs, 
God has not made them our examplars.* 

Before entering upon an analysis of the condi;ion of servants under 
these two states o'' society, let us settle the import of certain terms 
which describe the mode of procuring them. 

IMPORT OF THE WORD " BUY," AND THE PHRASE " BOUGHT WITH 

MONEY." 

From the direction to the Israelites to " buy" their servants, 
and from the phrase "bought with money," applied to Abraham's ser- 
vants, it is argued that they were articles o^ property. The sole ground 
for this belief is the terms " buy" and " bought with money," and such 
an import to these terms when applied to servants is assumed, not only 
in the absence of all proof, but in the face of evidence to the contrary. 
How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be proved was 
always assumed. To begi\\Q question in debate, what econom> of mid- 

* Those who insist thit tlie patriarchs held slaves, and sit with such delight under their 
shadow, hymming the praises of " those good old patnaichs and -.laveholder s," might at small 
c -St greatly augment their numbers. A single stanza celebrating patriarchal concu6inag-e. 
winding off with a chorus in hjnor of patriarchdl drunktnness, would be a trumpet rail, sum- 
mjning Irom bush and wake, highway i.nd hedge, and shtlterins fence, a brotherhood of kin- 
dred affinities, each cl umiiig Abraham or Noah as his patron samt, and shouting, " My name 
is legion." What a myiiad choir, and thunderous song '. 



16 

night oil ! wliat a forestaller of premature wrinkles, and grey hairs ! In^ 
stead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage, and painful colla- 
ting of passages, and cautiously tracing minute relations, to find the 
meaning of Scripture terms, let every man boldly resolve to interpret 
the language of the oldest book in the world, by the usages of his own 
time and place, and the work is done. And then what a march of 
mind ! Instead of one revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops 
of the morning ! Every man might take orders as an inspired inter- 
preter, with an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, if he only under- 
stood the dialect of his own neighborhood ! We repeat it, the only 
ground of proof that these terms are to De interpreted to mean, when 
applied to servants in the Bible, the same that they mean when applied 
to our slaves, is the terms themselves. 

What a Babel-jargon it would make of the Bible to take it for grant- 
ed that the sense in which words are now used is the inspired sense. 

David says, " I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." 
What a miracle-worker, to stop the earth in its revolution ! Rather too 
fast. Two hundred years ago, prevent was used in the strict Latin sense 
to come before, or anticipate. It is always used in this sense in the Old 
and New Testaments. David's expression, in the English of the nine- 
teenth century, is, " Before the dawning of the morning I cried," or, I 
began to cry before day-break. " So my prayer shall prevent thee." 
*' Let us prevent his face with thanksgiving." " Mine eyes prevent the 
night watches." " We shall not prevent them that are asleep," &;c. 
In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense now 
nearly or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally opposite to 
their present meaning. A few examples follow : " Oftentimes I pur- 
posed to come to you, but was let (hindered) hitherto." " And the four 
beasts (living ones) fell down and worshipped God," — " Whosoever 
shall offend (cause to sin) one of these little ones," — " Go out into the 
high ways and co7npel (urge) them to come in," — " Only let your con- 
versation (habitual conduct or course of life) be as becometh the Gos- 
pel,"—" They that seek me early (earnestly) shall find me, — " Give me 
byand.by (now) in a charger, the head of John the Baptist,"— " So 
when tribulation or persecution ariseth hy-and-by (immediately) they 
are offended. Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like 
bodies, are continually throwing off particles and absorbing others. So 
long as they are mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal 
suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for 
the next century is an employment sufficiently silly, (to speak within 



17 

bounds,) for a modern Bible dictionary maker. There never was a 
shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached to a word 
centuries ago, by showing what it means now. Pity that hyper-fashion- 
able mantuamakers and milliners were not a little quicker at taking 
hints from some of our Doctors of Divinity. How easily they could 
save their pious customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly 
shiflings of fashion, by demonstrating that the last importation of Parisian 
indecency, just now flaunting here on promenade, was the identical 
style of dress in which the pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels, 
the modest Rebecca drew water for the camels of Abraham's servants. 
Since such fashions are rife in Chestnut-street and Broadway now, they 
must have been in Canaan and Pandanaram four thousand years ago ! 

II. 1. The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procu- 
ring of servants, means procuring them as chaUe/s, seems based upon 
the (allacy — thai whatever costs money ?'s money; that whatever or who- 
ever you pay money for, is an article of property, and the fact of your 
paying for it proves that it is property. The children of Israel were re- 
quired to purchase their first-born out from under the obligations of the 
priesthood, Numb, xviii. 15, 16 ; Exod. xxxiv. 20. This custom is 
kept up to this day among the Jews, and the word buij is still used to 
describe the transaction. Does this prove that their first-born were, or 
are, held as property ? They were bought as really as were servants. 
So the Israelites were required Xo pay money for their own souls. This 
is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were their 
souls therefore marketable commodities ? 

2. Bible saints ZfOMg/inheir wives. Boaz ^OM^/ii Ruth. "So Ruth 
the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife." 
Ruth iv. 10. Hosea bought his wife. " So I bought her to me for fif- 
teen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of 
barley." Hosea iii. 2 Jacob bought his wives Rachel and Leah, and 
not having money, paid for them in labor — seven years a piece. Gen. 
xxix. 15 — 29. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, and 
paid for her by his labor, as the servant of her father. Exod. ii. 21. 
Shechem, when negociating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah, says, 
" What ye shall say unto me, I will give. Ask me never so much 
dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me." 
Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David purchased Michal, Saul's daughter, and 
Othniel, Achsah,the daughter of Caleb, by performing perilous services 
for the benefit of their fathers-in-law. 1 Sam. xviii. 25—27; Judges i. 
12, 13. That the purchase of wives, either with money or by service 



18 

was the general practice, is'plaiu from such passages as Exod. xxii. 17, 
and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among the Jews of the present day this usage 
exists, though it is dow a mere lorni, there being no real purchase. Yet 
among their marriage ceremonies, is one called " marrymg by the pen- 
ny." The 'oi cidences, not only in the methods of procuring wives 
and servants, and in the terms employed in describing the transactions, 
but in the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The highest price 
of wives (virgins) and servunts was the same. Compare Deut. xxii. 
28, 29, and Exod. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2 — 8. Tiie medium price 
of wives and servants was the same. Compare Hosea iii. 2, with Exod. 
xxi. 2. Hosea appears to have paid one half in money and the other 
in grain. Further, the Israelitish female bought-servanfs were wives, 
their husbands and their masters being the same persons. Exod. xxi. 8, 
and Judges xix. 3, 27, [[buying servants among the Jews shows that 
they were property, then buying wives shows that they were property. 
The words in the original used to describe the one, describe the other. 
Whv not contend that the wives of the ancient fathers of the faithful 
were their chattels, and used as ready change at a pinch ? And thence 
deduce the rights of modern husbands. How far gone is the Church 
from primitive purity ! How slow to emulate illustrious examples ! 
Alas! Patriarchs and prophets are followed afar off ! When will pious 
husbands live up to their Bible privileges, and become partakers with 
Old Testament worthies in the blessedness of a husband's rightful im- 
munities! Surely professors of religion now, are bound to buy and hold 
their wives as property ! Refusing so to do, is to question the morality 
of those " good old" wife-trading "patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob," with the prophets, and a host of v^hom the world was not 
worthy. 

The use of the word buy, to describe the procuring of wives, is not 
peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac language, the common expres- 
sion for "the married," or "the espoused," is "the bought." Even 
so late as the 16th century, the common record of marriages in the old 
German Chronicles was " A. bought B." 

The Hebrew word translated buy, is, like other words, modified by 
the nature of the subject to whi^h it is applied. Eve says, *• I have 
^o^ien (bought) a man of the Lord." She named him Cain, that is, 
bought. " He that heareth '-eproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding, 
Prov. XV. 32. So in Isa. xi. 11. " The Lord shall set his hand again 
to recover (to buy) the remnant of his people." So Ps. Ixxviii. 54. 
He brought tiiem to this mountain which his right hand had purchased, 



19 

J. e. gotten. Jer. xiii. 4. " Take the girdle that thou hast got" (bought.) 
Neh. V. 8. " We of our abiliiy have redeemed (bought) our brethren 
that were sold to the heathen." Here '' boughL" is not appHed to per- 
sons who were made slaves, but to those taken out of slavery. Prov. 
8. 22. " The Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of 
his way before his works of old." Prov. xix. 8. " He that getteih 
(buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul." Prov. xvi. 16. " How much 
better is it to ^ei (buy) wisdom than gold?" Finally, to buy is a se- 
condary meaning of the Hebrew word liana. 

4. Even at this day the word buy is used to describe the procuring of 
servants, where slavery is abolished. In the British West Indies, where 
slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still "bought." This is 
now the current word in West India newspapers. So a few years since 
in New- York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and even now in New-Jersey 
servants are " boughC as really as in Virginia. And the different 
senses in which the same word is used in the two states, puts no man 
in a quandary, whose common sense amounts to a modicum. 

So under the system of legal indenture in Illinois, servants now are 
" bought."* A short time since, liundreds of foreigners who came to 
this country were "bought" atmually. By voluntary contract they 
entraged to work for their purchasers a given time to pay for their pas- 
sao-e. This class of persons cidlcd " redemptioners," consisted at one 
time of thousands. Multitudes are bought ouJ, of slavery by themselves or 
others, and remove into free states. Under the same roof with the wri- 
ier is a " servant bought with money." A few weeks since, she was a 
slave. As soon as " bought," she was a slave no longer. Alas ! for 
our leading politicians if " buying" men makes them " chattels." The 
Whigs say that Benton and Rives were " bought" by the administration 
with the surplus revenue; and the other party, that Clay and Webster 
were "bought" by the Bank. The histories of the revolution tell us 
■that Benedict Arnold was " bought" by British gold. Did that make 
him an article of property ? When a northern clergyman marries a 
rich southern widow, country gossip hits ofT the indecency with this 
current phrase, '' The cotton hags bought him." When Robert Walpole 
said, " Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it can buy h'lm," 
and when John Randolph said, while llie Missouri question was pending, 

* The following statute is now in force in the stateof Illinois— " No negro, mulatto, or In- 
«lian, shill at any time purchase any survani other thin of their own complexi .n : and if any 
of the per.-.ons aforesa d sha 1 presume to purchase a while .-ervant, such servant »hrt!l imme- 
•diaiely become free, and shall be so lield, di emed, and taken." 

3 



2a 

" The northern delegation is in the nnarket ; give me money enough, 
and I can huy them," they both meant JM5/ what they said. When the 
temperance publications tell us that candidates for office buy men with 
whiskey ; and the oracles of street tattle, that the court, district attor- 
ney, and jury, in the late trial of Robinson were loughi, we have no 
floating visions of " chattels personal," man auctions, or coffles. 

Tne transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to 
the meaning attached to " buy" and " bought with money." See Gen. 
xlvii. 18 — 26. The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants, 
and that he should buy tliem. When the bargain was closed, Joseph 
said, •' Behold I have hoitghi you this day," and yet it is plain that nei- 
ther of the partii-s dreamed that the persons bought were in any sense 
articles of property, but merely that they became thereby obligated to 
labor for the government on certain conditions, as a compensation for 
the entire support of themselves and families during the famine. And 
that the idea attached to " buy us," and " behold 1 have bought you," 
was merely the procuring of services voluntarily offered, and secured 
by contract, as a return for value received, and not at all that the Egyp- 
tians were bereft of their personal ownership, and made articles of pro- 
perty. And this buying of services (they were to give one-fifth pan 
of their crops to Pharaoh) is called in Scripture usage, buying the per. 
sons. This case deserves special notice, as it is the only one where the 
whole transaction of buying servants is detailed — the preliminaries, he 
process, the mutual acquiescence, and the permanent relation resulting 
therefrom. In all other instances, the mere fact is stattd without enter- 
ing into particulars. In this case, the whole process is laid open. 

1. The persons "bought," sold thernsehes, and of their own accord. 

2. Obtaining [)ermanently the services of persons, or even a portion 
of them, is called "buying" those persons. The objector, at the out- 
set, assumes that servants were hought of third persons ; and thence in- 
fers that they were articles of property. This is sheer assumpiion. 
Not a single instance is recorded, of a servant being sold by any one 
but himself; not a case, either under the patriarchal, or the Mosaic sys- 
terns, in which a master sold his servant. That the servants who were 
" bought" sold themselves, is a fair inference from various passages of 
Scripture. 

In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of the Israelite, who became the ser- 
vant of the stranger, the words are, "If he sell Hi.MStLF unto the 
stranger." The sa)ne word, and the same form of the word, which, in 
the 47th verse, is rendered sell himself, is in the y9th verse of tlie same 



21 

xihapter, rendered he sold; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is rer.*- 
dered "be sold." Here it is the Hithpael conjugation, which is reflex" 
ive in its force, and, hiie the middle voice in Greek, represents what an 
individual does for himself, or in his own concerns ; and should mani- 
festly have been rendered, ye shall offer yourselves for sale. For a clue 
to Scripture usage on this point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25 — " Thou hast 
sold thyself to work evil." " There was none like to Ahab that sold 
himself to work wickedness." — 2 Kings xvii. 17. "They used divina- 
tion and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil." — Isa. 1. 1. 
" For your iniquities have ye sold yourselves." Isa. Hi. 3, "Ye have 
sold yourselves for nought, and ye shall be redeemed without money." 
See also, Jeremiah xxxiv. 14 — Romans vii. 14, and vi. 16 — John viii., 
34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians, already quoted. 

Again, if servants were bought of third persons, where are the in- 
stances? In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, it is generally 
stated that they were bought of third persons. Is it not a fair inference, 
if servants were bought of third persons, that there would sometimes 
have been such an intimation ? 

II. — The leading design of the mosaic laavs relating to masters 

AND SERVANTS, WITH AN ENUMERATION OF THE RIGHTS AND PRIVI- 
LEGES SECURED TO SERVANTS. 

The general object of those statutes, which prescribed the relations of 
master and servant, was the good of both parties — but more especially 
the good of the servants. While the interests of the master were spe- 
cially guarded from injury, those of the servants w^ere promoted. 

These laws were a merciful provision for the poorer classes, both of 
the Israelites and Strangers. Not laying on burdens, but lightening 
them — they were a grant of privileges — a bestowment offavors. 

1. No servant J rom the Strangers, could remain a servant in the fa- 
mily of an Israelite, without hecoming a proselyte. Compliance with 
this condition was the price of the privilege. — Genesis xvii. 9 — 14, 
23,27. 

2. Excommunication from the family was a punishment. — Genesis 
xxi. 14 — Luke xvi. 2 — 4. 

3. The fact that every Hebrew servant could compel his master to 
keep him after the six years contract had expired, shows that the system 
was framed to advance the interests and gratify the wishes of the servant 
quite as much as those of the master. If the servant demanded it, the 



2^ 

law obliged the master to retain him in his household, however little he 
might need his services, or great his dislike to the individual. Deut. xv, 
I2 — 17, and Exodus xxi. 2 — 6. 

4. The rights and •privileges guaranteed Inj law to all servants. 

(1.) They irere admitted into covenant with God. Deut. xxix. 
10—13. 

(2.) They were invited guests at all the national and family festivals 
of the household in which they resided. Exodus xii. 43 — 44 ; Deut. xii. 
12, 18, and xvi. 10—16. 

(3.) They were statedly instructed in morality and religion. Deut. 
xxxi. 10—13 ; Joshua viii. 33—35; 2 Chronicles xvii. 8 — 9. 

(4.) They icere released from their regular labor nearly one half of 
THE WHOLE TIME. During which, the law secured to them their entire 
support ; and the same public and family instruction that was provided 
for the other members of the Hebrew community. 

(a.) The Law secured to them the whole of every seventh year ; Lev. 
XXV. 3 — 6 ; thus giving to those servants that remained such during the 
entire period between the jubilees, eight whole years (including the Ju- 
bilee year) of unbroken rest. 

(b.) Every seventh day. This in forty-two years, (the eight being 
subtracted from the fifty) would amount to just six years. 

(c.) The three great annual festivals. The Passover, which com- 
menced on the 1.5th of the 1st month,fand lasted seven days, Deut. xvi. 
2, 8. The Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, "which began on the sixth 
day of the third month,, and lasted seven days. Lev. xvi. 10, 11. And 
the Feast of Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the seventh 
month, and lasted eight days. Deut. xvi. 13, 15 ; Lev. xxiii. 34 — 39. 
As all met in one place, much time would be spent on the journey. 
Their cumbered caravans moved slowly. After their arrival at the 
place of sacrifice, a day or two at least, would be requisite for divers 
■preparations, before entering upon the celebration of the festival, besides 
some time at the close of it, in preparations for their return. If we as- 
sign three weeks to each festival — including the time spent on the 
journey going and returnmg, and the delays before and after the cele- 
bration, together with the festival week ; it will be a small allowance for 
the cessation of their regular labor. As there were three festivals 
in the year, the main body of the servants would be absent from their 
stated employments at least nine weeks annually, which would amount 
in forty-two years, subtracting the sabbaths, to six years and eighty- four 
'dav&\ 



23 

(e.) The neio moons. The Jewish year had twelve ; Josephus tells 
lis that the Jews always kept two days for the new moon. See Calmet 
on the Jewish Calender, and Home's Introduction ; also 1 Sam. xx* 
18, 19, 27. This would amount in forty-two years, to two years, two 
hundred and eighty days, after the necessary subtractions. 

(f.) The feast of trumpets. On the first day of the seventh month) 
and of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24,25. 

(g.) The day of atonement. On the tenth of the seventh month. 
Lev. xxiii. 27 — 32. 

These two last feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days of 
lime not otherwise reckoned. 

Thus it appears that those persons who continued servants during the 
whole period between the jubilees, were by law released from their la- 
bor, TWENTY-THREK YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, 

and those who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In 
the foregoing calculation, besides making a generous donation of all the 
fractionsjo the objecto.'', we have left out of the account, those nume- 
rous local festivals to which frequent allusion is made, as in Judges xxi. 
19; 1 Sam. 9th chapter. And the various family festivals, such as at 
the weaning of children ; at marriages; at sheep shear'ngs ; at the 
making of covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1st 
Sam. XX. 28,29. Neither have we included those memorable festivals 
instituted at a later period of the Jewish history. The feast of Purim, 
lEsther, ix. 28, 29 ; an<J the feast of the Dedication, which lasted eight 
days. John x. 22 ; 1 Mac. iv. 59. 

Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time, 
which, if distributed, would on an average be almost one half of the 
DAYS IN EACH YEAR. Meanwhile, they and their families were sup- 
ported, and furnished with opportunities of instruction. If this amount 
of time were distributed over every day, the servants would have to them- 
selves, all but dL fraction o/ one half of each day, and would labor for 
their masters the remaining fraction and the other half of the day. 

This regulation is a part of that Mosaic system which is 
claimed by slaveholders as the great prototype of american 
"Slavery. 

5. The servant was protected by lata equally with the other members 
of the community. 

Proof — '' Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteous' 
ly between every man and his neighbor, and thk stranger that is with 
HIM." " ¥b shall not respect persons in judgment, but ye shall hear 



24 

the SMALL as well as the great.'''' Deut. i. 16, 17. Also in Lev. xxiv. 
22. " Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger, as fat 
one of your own country, for I am the Lord your God." So Number^s 
XV. 29. " Ye shall have one law for him that sinneth through ignorance, 
both for him that is born among the children of Israel, and for the 
STRANGER that sojoumeth amon^ them.'''' Deut. xxvii. 19. " Cursed 
be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, ihefatherless 
and the widow." 

6. The Mosaic system enjoined upon the Israelites the greatest affec 
tion and kindness toward their servants, for eign as well as Jewish. 

Lev. xix. 34. " The stranger that dwelleth iciih you shall be unto 
you as one born among you, and thou shall love him as thyself." Also 
Deut. x. 17, 19. " For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of 
lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible, lohich regardeth not per- 
sons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless 
and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raimenti 
love ye therefore the stranger." So Exodus xxii. 21. " Thou 
shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him." Exodus xxiii. 9. ''Thou 
shall not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger." Lev. 
XXV. 35, 36. ^^ If thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, 
though he be a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take 
thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God." [What an ab- 
surdity to suppose that this same stranger could be taken by one that 
feared his God, held as a slave, and fobbed of time, earnings, and all his 
rights!] 

7. Servants were placed upon a level with their musters in all civil 
and religious rights. See Numbers xv. 15, 16, 29. Numb. ix. 14. 
Deut. i. 16, 17. Lev. xxiv. 22, 

in. — Did persons become servants VOLUNTARILY, or were 
they made servants against THEIR WILLS ? 

We argue that they became servants of their own accord, 
1. Because to become a servant in the family of an Israelite, was to 
abjure idolatry, to enter into covenant with God,* to be circumcised in 

■* Maimonides, who wrote in Egypt about seven hundred years ago, a cotemporary with 
Jarchi, and who stands with him atthe head of Jewish writers, gives the following testimony 
on this point : 

" Whetlier a servant be born in the power of an Israehte, or whether he be purchased from 
the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant. 



25 

token of it, to be bound to the observance of the Sabbath, of the Pass, 
over, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and to receive in- 
struction in all the particulars of the moral and ceremonial law. 

Were the servants/orcecZ through all these processes? Was the re- 
nunciation of idolatry compulsory? Were they dragged into covenant 
with God ? Were they seized and circumcised by main strength ? 
Were they compelled mechanically to chew, and swallow, the flesh of 
the Paschal lamb, while they abhorred the institution, despised its cere- 
monies, spurned the law which enjoined it, detested its author and exe- 
cutors, and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemmo- 
rated, bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the day of its consumma- 
tion? Were they driven from all parts of the land three times in the 
year up to the annual festivals ? Were they drugged with instruction 
which they nauseated '! Were they goaded through a round of cere- 
monies, to them senseless and disgusting mummeries ; and drilled into 
the tactics of a creed rank with loattied abominations? 

We repeat it. to become a servant, was to become a proselyte. And 
how did God authorize his people to make proselytes ? At the point of 
the sword ? By the terror of pains and penalties? By converting men 
into merchandise ? Were proselyte and chattel synonymes, in the Di- 
vine vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a thing before taken into 
covenant with God ? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption, and 
the sole passport to the communion of the saints ? 

2. We argue the voluntariness of servants from Deut. xxiii. 15, 16, 
*' Thou shah not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped 
from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among 
yon, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it 
liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him." 

'■ But he that is in tlie house is entered oa the eighth day, and he that is bought with money, 
on the day on which the master receives him, unless the slave be unwilling. For if the master 
receive a grown slave, and he be unvnlling, his master is to bear with him, to seek to win him 
over by instruction, and by luve and kindness, for one year. After which, skouldhe rrfuse so 
long, it is forbidden to keep him, longer than a year. Aiidthemastermust send liim back to the 
strangers from whence lie came. Forthe Godof Jacob wiilnot accept any other than the wor- 
ship of a wjHing- heart. "—Maimon.Hilcoth, Miloth, Chap. 1st, Sec. 8lh. 

The ancient Jewish Doctors agree in llic lestimony, that the servant from the strangers who 
at the close of his probationary year still refused lo adopt the religion of the Mosaic system, 
and was on that account cut off from Ihe family, and sent back to his own people, received a.fuH 
compensation far his seivices, besides the payment of his e.xpenses. But that postponement of the 
circumcision of the foreijn servant for a year (or euenataZZafterhe had entered the family of an 
Israelite) of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have beenamere usage. We findnotliing 
ofititi the regulations of the Mosaic system. Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly ini- 
tiatory. Whether it was ante mej[6]y national ox spiritual, or 6o«A, comes not within the scope of 
this inquiry . Nor does it at all affect the argument. 



26 

As though God had said, "To deliver him up would be to recognize the 
fight of the master to hold him. His Jleeing " shows his choice — pro- 
claims his wrongs, his master's oppressive actrf, and his own claim to 
legal protection." You shall not force him back, and thus recognize 
the right of the master to hold him in such a condition as induces him 
to flee to others for protection." It may be objected, that this command 
had no reference to servants among the Israelites, but only to those of 
heathen masters in the surrounding nations. We answer. The regulation 
has no restriction. Its terms are unlimited. But the objection, even if 
valid, merely shifts the pressure o( the difficulty to another point. Does 
God array his infinite authority to protect the free choice of a single 
servant from the heathen, and yet authorize the same persons, to crush 
the free choice oi thousands of servants from the heathen 1 Suppose a 
case. K foreign servant flees fiom his master to the Israelites ; God 
speaks, " He shall dwell with thee, in that place which he shall choose, 
in one of thy gates where it likelh him best." They were strictly 
charged riot to put him in a condition which he did not choose. Now, 
suppose this same servant, instead of coming into Israel of his own ac 
cord, had been dragged in by some kidnapper who bought him of his 
master, and forced him into a condition against his will. Would He 
who forbade such treatment of the stranger, who voluntarily came into 
the land, sanction the same treatment of the sa7ne person, provided in 
addition to this last outrage, the previous one had been committed of 
forcing him into the nation against his will ? 

To commit violence on the free choice of a foreign servant is a hor- 
rible enormity, forsooth, provided you begin the violence after he has 
come among you. But if you commit the frst act on the other side of 
the line ; if you begin the outrage by buying him from a third person 
against his will, and then tear him from home, and drag him across the 
line into the land of Israel, and hold him as a slave — ah ! that alters the 
case, and you may perpetrate the violence now with impunity ! Would 
greater favor have been shown to this new comer from the heathen than 
to the old residents — those who had been servants in Jewish families 
perhaps for a generation ? Were the Israelites commanded to exercise 
toward him, unclrcumciscd and out of the covenant, a justice and kind- 
ness denied to the multitudes who were circumcised, and ivithin the 
covenant ? 

Again : the objector finds small gain to his argument on the supposi- 
tion that the covenant respected merely the fugitives from the surround, 
ing nations, while it left the servants of the Israelites in a condition 



27 

atrainst their wills — the objector finds small gain to his argument. Iq 
that case, the surrounding nations would of course adopt retaliatory 
measures, and resolve themselves into so many asylums for fugitive 
Israelitish servants. As these nations were on every side of them 
such a proclamation would have been an effectual lure to men held in a 
condition which was a constant counteraction of will. Further, the ob- 
jector's assumption destroys itself, for the same command which pro- 
tected the foreign servant from the power of his master, protected him 
equally from the power of an Israelile. It was not merely, " Thou 
shalt not deliver him to his master,'' but " he (the servant) shall dwell 
with thee, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates where 
it liketh him best." Every Israelite was commanded to respect his free 
choice, and to put him in no condition against his loill. What was thi? 
but a proclamation, that all who chose to live in the laud and obey the 
laws, were left to their own free will, to dispose of their services at such 
a rate, to such persons, and in such places as they pleased ? 

Besides, grant that this command prohibited the sending back oi fo- 
reign servants merely, was there any law requiring the return of ser^ 
vants who had escaped from the Israelites 1 There was a statute re- 
quiring the return o{ properly lost, and cattle escaped, but none requiring 
the return of escaped servants. 

Finally, these verses contain, first, a command, " Thou shalt not 
deliver," &c. Secondly, a declaration of the fugitive's right oi free 
choice, and of God's will that he should exercise it at his own discre- 
tion ; and thirdly, a command guarding this right, namely, " Thou shalt 
not oppress him," as though God had said, If you forbid him to exercise 
his own choice, as to the [)lace and condition of his residence, it is oppres- 
sion, and I will not tolerate it. 

3. We argue the voluntariness of servants from their peculiar oppor- 
tunities and facilities for escape. Three times every year, all the males 
over twelve years of age, were required to attend the public festivals. 
The main body were thus absent from their homes not less than three 
weeks each time, making nine weeks annually. As these caravans 
moved over the country, were there military scouts lining the way, to 
intercept deserters? — a corporal's guard stationed at each pass of the 
mountains, sentinels pacing the hiU-tops, and light horse scouring the 
defiles ? What safe contrivance had the Israelites for taking their ^^slaves' 
three times in a year to Jerusalem and back ? When a body of slaves 
is moved any distance in our free and equal republic, they are hand- 
cuffed to keep them from running away, or beating their drivers' brains 

4 



28 

out. Was this the Mosaic plan, or an improvement left for the wisdom 
of Solomon ? The usage, doubtless, claims a paternity not less venera- 
ble and biblical ! Perhaps they were lashed upon camels, and trans- 
ported in bundles, or caged up, and trundled on wheels to and fro, and 
while at the Holy City, " lodged in jail for safe keeping," religious ser- 
vices ex^ra being appointed, and special "oral instruction" for their 
benefit. But meanwhile, what became of the sturdy handmaids left at 
home ? What hindered them from marching off in a body? Perhaps 
the Israelitish matrons stood sentry in rotation round the kitchens, while 
the young ladies scoured the country, as mounted rangers, to pick up 
stragglers by day, and patrolled the streets as city guard?, keeping a 
sharp look-out at night. 

4. Their continuance in Jewish families depended upon the perform- 
ance of various rites and cerononies necessarily voluntary. 

Suppose a servant from the heathen should, upon entering a Jewish 
family, refuse circumcision ; the question whether he shall remain a ser- 
vant, is in his own hands. If a slave, how simple the process of eman- 
cipation ! His refusal did the ph. Or, suppose that, at any time, he 
should refuse to attend the tri-yearly feasts, or should eat leavened 
bread during the Passover, or compound the ingredients of the anoint- 
ing oil, he is "cut off from the people ;" excojnmunicaied. 

5, We infer the voluntariness of the servants of the Patriarchs Jrom 
the impossibility of their being held against their ivills. The servants of 
Abraham are an illustration. At one time he had three hundred and 
eighteen young men " born in his house," and probably many more not 
born in his house. The whole number of his servants of all ages, was 
probably many thousands. Doubtless, Abraham was a man of a mil- 
lion, and Sarah too, a right notable housekeeper ; still, it is not easy 
to conceive hovv they contrived to hold so many thousand servants 
against their wills, unless the patriarch and ins wife took turns in per- 
forming the Hibernian exploit of surrounding them ! The neighboring 
tribes, instead of constituting a picket guard to hem in his servants, 
would have been far more likely to sweep them and him into captivity, 
as they did Lot and his household. Besides, Abraham had neither 
" Constitution," nor " compact," nor statutes, nor judicial officers to send 
back his fugitives, nor a truckling police to pounce upon panic-stricken 
women, nor gentleman-kidnappers, suing for patronage, volunteering to 
howl on the track, boasting their blood-hound scent, and pledging their 
" honor" to hunt down and " deliver up," provided they had a descrip- 
tion of the " fiesh- marks," and were stimulated in their chivalry by 



29 

pieces of silver. Abraham seems also lo have been sadly deficient in 
all the auxiliaries of family government, such as siocks, hand- cuffs, foot- 
chains, yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. His destitution of these pa- 
triarchal iudispensables is the more afflicting, wiien we consider his faith- 
ful discharge of responsibilities to iiis household, though so doplorablv 
destitute of the needful aids. 

G. We infer that servants were voluntary, from the fact that there is 
no instance of an IsraeJitish master ever selling a servant. Abraham 
had thousands of servants, but appears never to have sold one. Isaac 
" grew until he became very great," and had " great store of ser- 
vants." Jacob's youth was spent in the family of Laban, where he 
lived a servant twenty-one years. Afterward he had a large number of 
servants. 

When Joseph sent for Jacob to come into Egypt, tlie words are, 
"thou and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks and 
thy herds, and all that thou hast." Jacob took his flocks and herds 
hut no servants. Gen xlv. 10; xlvii. 6; xlvii. 1. His servants 
doubtless, served under their own contracts, and when Jacob went into 
Egypt, they chose to siay in their own country. 

The government might sell thieves, if they had no property, until 
their services had made good the injury, and paid the legal fine. Ex. 
xxii. 3. But masters seem to have had no power to sell their servants 
— the reason is obvious. To give the master a right to sell his servant, 
would annihilate the servant's right of choice in his own disposal; but 
says the objector, To give the master a right to buy a servant, equally 
annihilates the servant's r/g'/ti o/'c/iozce. Answer. It is one thing to 
have a right to buy a man, and a very different thing to have a right to 
buy him oi another man. 

Though there is no instance of a servant being bought of his, or her 
master, yet there are instances of young females being bought of their 
fathers. But their purchase as servants was their betrothal as wives. 
Exodus xxi. 7, 8. '''' If o, man sell his daughter to he a maid-servanL 
she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her 7nas. 
ter WHO hath betrothed her to himself, he shall let her be re- 
deemed."* 

* The commont of Maimonides on this passage is as follows : 

" A Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under obligations. 
to espouse her to himself or to his son, when she was fit to be betrothed." — Maimonides — 
Hilcoth-Ubedim, Ch. IV. Sec. XI. 

Jarchi, on tlie same passage, says, "He is bound to espouse her and talichr to be his wife 
for the money of her purchase is the money of her espousals.'' 



7. Wc infer that the Hehrew servant was voluntary in coMMENCiNCf 
his service, because he was pre-eminently so m continuing it. If, at the 
year of release, it was the servant's choice to remain with his master, so 
did the law guard his free will, that it required his ear to be bored by 
the judges of the land, thus making it impossible for the servant to be 
held in an involuntary condition. Yea, so far was his free choice pro- 
tected, that his master was compelled to keep him, however much he 

might wish to get rid of him. 

8. Ths method prescribed for proctiring servants, recognized their 
choice, and was an appeal to it. The Israelites were commanded to 
offer them a suitable inducement, and then leave them to decide. They 
might neither seize them by force, nor frighten them by threats, nor 
wheedle them by false pretences, nor borroio them, nor beg them ; but 
they were commanded to buy them ;* that is, they were to recognize 
the right of l\\e individuals to their own services^— their right to dispose 
of them, and their right to refuse all offers. They might, if they 
pleased, refuse all applications, and thus oblige those who made themj 
to do their own work. Suppose all, with one accord, refused to be- 
come servants, what provision did the Mosaic law make for such an 
emergency 1 None. 

9. Various incidental expressions throughout the Bible, corroborate 
the idea that servants became such by virtue of their own contract. Job 
xli. 4, is an illustration, " Will he (Leviathan) make a covenant" 
with thee ? wilt thou take him for a servant forever ?" 

10. The transaction which made the Egypitians the servants of 
Phauoah, shows entire voluntariness throughout. It is detailed in Gen. 
xlvii. 18 — 26. Of their own accord, they came to Joseph and said, 
" We have not aught left but our bodies and our lands ; buy us ;" then 
in the 25th verse, " Thou hast saved our lives : let us find grace in the 
sight of my Lord, and we will be servants to Pharaoh.''^ 

11. We argue that the condition of servants was an optional owe* 
from the fact that kick strangers did not become servants. Indeed, so 
far were they from becoming servants themselves, that they bought and 
held Jewish servants. Lev. xxv. 47. 

12. The sacrifices and offerings which all u'ere required to present, 
were to be made voluntarily. Lev. i. 2, 3. 

13. Mention is often made of persons becoming servants where they 
toere manifestly and pre-eminently voluntary. The case of the Pro- 

* The CJise of thices, whose services were sold until they had earned enough to make 
Jeslitulion to the person wrouged, and to pay the legal penalty, stands by iHelf, and liaa 
no relation to the condition of servants. 



31 

phet Elisha is one. 1 Kings xix. 21 ; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijali was his 
Wiaster. The original word, translated master, is the same that is sd 
rendered in almost every instance where masters are spoken of through- 
out the Mosaic and patriarchal systems. It is translated master eighty. 
five times in our English version. Moses was the servant of Jethro. 
Exodus iii. 1. Joshua was the servant of Moses. Numbers xi. 2S. 
Jacob was the servant of Laban. Genesis xxix, 18 — 27. 

IV. Were the servants forced to work without pay ? 

Having already shown that the servants became and continued such 
of their oum accord, it would be no small marvel if they chose to work 
without pay. Their becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as 

a motive. 

That they were paid for their labor, we argue, 

1. Because, lohih Israel was under the Mosaic system, God rehulced 
in thunder, the sin of using the labor of others loithout wages. " Wo 
unto him that buildelh his house ly unrighteousness, and his chambers 
by wrong ; that useth his neighbor's service 2vithout loages, and giveth 
him notfor his work.'' Jer. xxii. 13. Here God testifies that to use 
the service of others without wages is " unrighteousness," and He 
commissions his " wo" to burn upon the doer of the » wrong." This 
" wo" was a permanent safeguard of the Mosaic system. The Hebrew 
word Rea, here translated neighbor, does not mean one man, or class 
of men, in distinction from others, but any one with whom we have to dd 
—all descriptions of persons, not merely servants and heathen, but even 
those who prosecute us in lawsuits, and enemies while in the act of 
fighting us—" As tohen a man riseth against his neighbor and slayeth 
him." Deut. xxii. 26. " Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know 
not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbor hath put thee to 
shame." Prov. xxv. 8. " Thou shalt not bear false witness against 
%ne'ighbor." Exod. XX. 16. '^ If any man come presumptuously 
upon Ms neighbor to slay him with guile." Exod. xxi. 14. In these, 
and in scores of similar cases, Rea is the original word. 

2. We have the testimony of God, that in our duty to our fellow men, 
/^LL the law and the PROPHETS hang upon this command, » Thou 
Shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Oar Saviour, in giving this com- 
mand, quoted verbatim one of the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. 
xix. 18. In the 34th verse of the same chapter, Moses commands obe- 
dience to this law in all the treatment of strangers, " The stranger that 



33 

dlvelleih with yeu shall he unto you as one horn among you, and thou 
SHALT LOVE HIM AS THYSELF." If it be loving Others a* ourselves, to 
make them work for us vviiliout pay ; to rob them of food and clothing, 
as well as wages, would be a stronger illustration still of the law of 
love! Super-disinterested benevolence ! And if it be doing to others 
as we would have them do to us, to make them work for our oum good 
alone, Paul should bo called to order for his hard sayings against human 
nature, especially for that libellous matter in Ephes. v. 29, "No man 
ever yet haled his own flesh, hut nourishelh and cherisheth it.'" 

3. As persons hecame servants from poveuty, we argue that they 
were compensated, since they frequently oivned property, and sometimes 
a large amount. Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, gave David a 
princely present, "An hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches 
of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine." 2 
Sam. xvi. 1. The extent of his possessions can be inferred from the 
fact, that though the father of fifteen sons, he still employed twenty 
servants, of whom he was the master. 

A case is stated in Leviticus xxv. 57 — 59, where a servant, reduced 
to poverty, sells hiraseltj and it is declared that afterward he may be 
redeemed, either by his kindred, or by himself. A.s he was forced to 
sell himself from sheer poverty, he must not only have acquired pro- 
perty after he became a servant, but a considerable sum. 

if it had not been common for servants to possess, and acquire pro- 
perty, over which they had the exclusive control, Gehazi, the servant 
of Elisha, would hardly have ventured to take a large sum of money, 
(nearly $3000*) from Naaman, (2 Kings v. 22, 23.) As it was pro- 
cured by deceit, he was anxious to conceal the means used in getting 
it; but if the Israelitish servants, like our slaves, could •' own nothing, 
nor acquire any thing," to embark in such an enterprise would have been 
consummate stupidi'ty. The fact of having in his possession two talents 
of silver, would of itself convict him of theft. ■(" But since the possession 
and use of property by servants, was common undc^r the Mosaic sys- 

* Though we have not sufficient data to decide -witli accuracy upon the relative value 
of that sum, then and now, yet we have enouglito warrant us in saying that two talents of 
silver had far more value then than three thousand dollars have now. 

t Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states stealing a large amount of money? 
They " know how to lake care of themselves^' quite too well for that. When they steal, the/ 
are careful to do it on such a small scale, or in the taking of such things as will make detection 
difficult. No doubt tiny steal now and then alittle, and a gaping marvel would it be if they 
did not. Why should thiy not follow in tlie footsteps ol ihcir nia>-ters and mistresses? 
Dull scholars indeed I if, after so many lessons from proficients m the art, wlio drive the bu- 
siness by wholesale, they should not occasionally copy their betters, fall into ihe fashion, and 



33 

tern, he might have it, and invest or use if, without attracting special at-. 
tention. And that consideration alone would have been a strong mo- 
tive to the act. His master, while he rebuke's him for using sucii means 
to get the money, not only does not take, it from him, but seems 
to expect that he would invest it in real estate, and catlle, and would 
procure servants wilh it. 2 Kings v. 26. In 1 Sam. ix. 8, we find 
the servant of Saul having money, and relieving his master in an emer- 
cency. Arza, the servant of Elah, was the owner of a house. That 
it was spacious and somewhat magnificent, would be a natural infer- 
ence from the fact that it was a resort of the kmg. 1 Kings xvi. 9. 
The case of the Gibeonites, who, after they became servants,, still occu- 
pied their cities, and remained, in many. respects, a distinct people for 
centuriei ; and that of the 150,000 Canaanites, the servants of Solomon, 
who worked out their tribute of bond-service in levies, periodically re- 
lieving each other, while preparing the materials for the temple, are 
additional illustrations of independence in the acquisition and ownership 
of property. 

4. Heirship. — Servants frequently inherited their master's property; 
especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family. 
This seems to have been a general usage. 

'Ihe cases of Eliezer, the servant of Abraham ; Ziba, the servant of 
Mephibosheth, Jarha an Egyptian, the servant of Sheshan, and the hus- 
band of his daughter; 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35, and of the hushancbnen who 
said of their master's son, " this is the heir, let us kill him, and the in- 
IIERITANCE AviLL BE oiTRS." Mark xii. 7, are illustrations. Also the 
declaration in Prov. xvii. 2 — " A loise servant shall have rule over a 
son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance 
AMONG the brethren." This passage seems to give servants prece- 
dence as heirs, even over the loives and daughters of their masters. 
Did masters hold by force, aUd p/under of earnings, a class of persons, 
from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for their 
property, and husbands for their daughters ? 

try their hand in a small way, at a practice which is the only permanent and universal busi- 
ness carried on around them I 

Ignoble truly! never to feel the stirrings of high impulse, prompting them to imitate the 
eminent pattern set before them in the daily vocation of " Honorables" and " Excellencies," 
and to emulate the illustrious examples of Doctors of Divinity and Right and Very Rever- 
ends! Hear President Jefferson's testimony. In hi;> notes of Virginia, speaking of slaves, he 
says, ■' That disposition to theft with which tliey (the slaves) have been branded, must be 
ascribed to their situation, and not to any special depravity of the moral sense. It is a problem 
which I give the master to solve, wtiutlier the religious precepts against the violation of pro- 
perty ware not framed f>r him as wtU as for his slave— and whether the slave may not 
as justifiably take a little from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may slay one who 
svould slay him '!" See Jeffe.-son's Notes on Virginia, pp. 20'— J. 



34 

5. All were required to present offerings and sacrifices. Deut. xvi. 
15, 17. 2 Chron. xv. 9—11. Numb. ix. 13. 

Servants must have had permanently, the means of acquiring pro- 
perty to meet these expenditures. 

6. Those Hebrew servants who tcent out at the seventh year, were 
provided by law with a large stock of provisio?is and cattle. Deut. xv. 
11 — 14. " Thou shall furnish him liberally out of thyfiock, and out of 
thy floor, and out of thy wine press, of that whereicith the Lord thy God 
hath blessed thee, thou shall give him.'^* If it be objected, that no men- 
tion is made of the servants from the strangers, "receiving a hke bounti-^ 
ful supply, we answer, neither did the most honorable class of the Isra- 
elitish servants, the freeholders ; and for the same reason, they did not 
go out in the seventh year, but continued until the jubilee. If the fact 
that no mention is made of the Gentile servants receiving such a gratuity 
proves that they were robbed of their earnings ; it proves that the most 
valued class of Hebrew servants were robbed of theirs also, a conclusion 
too stubborn for even pro-slavery masticators, however unscrupulous. 

7. The servants were bought. In other words, they received com- 
pensation for their services in advance. Having shown, under a pre- 
vious head, that servants sold themselves, and of course received the 
compensation for themselves, (except in cases where parents hired out 
the tmie of their children until they became of age,)f a mere reference 
to the fact in this place is all that is required for the purposes of this ar- 
gument. 

8. We infer that servants were paid, because we find masters at one 
time having a large number of servants, and afterwards none, without any 
intimation that they roere sold. The wages of servants would enable 
them to set up in business for themselves. Jacob, after being the ser- 
vant of Laban for twenty-one years, became thus an independent herds- 
man, and was the master of many servants. Gen. xxx. 43, and xxxii. 
15. But all these servants had left him before he went down into 
Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for 
themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11, and xlvi. 1 — 7, 32. 

9. God's testimony to the character of Abraham. Genesis xviii. 19. 

* The comment of Miimonides on this passage is as lollows— " ' Thou shalt furnish him 
liberally,' <tc. That is to say, ' Loading, ye shall load him,' likewise every one of his family 
with as much as he can take with him -abundant benefits. And if it be avariciously asked, 
■' How much must I give him ?' 1 say unto i/ou, not kss than thirty shekels, wliich is the valuation 
of a servant, as declared in Exodus xxi. 32."— Maimonides, Hilcoth, Obedira, Chapter ii. Sec- 
tion 3. 

t Among the Israelite.^, girls became of ai/e at twelve, and boys at thirteen years. 



35 

*^ For 1 know him that he loill command his children and his household 
after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and 
JUDGMENT." We liave here Go I's testimony, that Abraliam taught his 
servants " the way of ttie Lord." Wliat was the " way of the Lord" 
respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered ? " Wo 
unto him that useth his neighbor's service without wages /" Jcr. xxii. 13. 
"Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal." Col. 
iv. 1. "Render unto all their dl'ks." Rom. xiii. 7. " The laborer is 
worthy of his hire.'' Luke x. 7. How did Abra lam teacli his servants 
to " do justice" 10 others ? By doing injustice to the7n ? Did he exhort 
them to '' render to all their dues" by keeping back their oion? Did 
he teach them that " the laborer was wortliy of his hire" by robbing 
them oi theirs 1 Did he beget in them a reverence lor the eighth com- 
mandment by pilfering all their time and labor? Did he teach them 
" not to defraud" others " in any matter" by denying them " what was 
just and equal V If each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism 
did not become a very Aristides in justice, then an illustrious example, 
patriarchal dignity, and practical lessons, can make but slow headway 
against human perversencss ! 

10. Specific precepts of the Mosaic laio enforcing general principles. 
Out of many, we select the follovvmg : 

(1.) " Thou shah not muzzle the ox that treadcth out the corn," or lite= 
rally, zohile he thresheth. Deut. xxv. 4. Here is a general principle 
applied to a familiar case. The ox representing all domestic animals. 
Isaiah XXX. 24. A particular kind of service — rt/Hvinds ; and a law 
requiring an abinidant provision for the wants of an animal ministering 
to man in di certain way, — a general principle of treatment covering all 
times, modes, and instrumentalities of service. The object of the law 
was, not merely to enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to inculcate the 
duty of rewarding those who serve us, showing that they who labor for 
others, are entitled to what is ju-st and equal in return ; and if such care 
is enjoined, by God, not men^ly for the ample sustenance, but for the 
present enjoyment of a brute, what would be a meet return for the ser- 
vices o^ man ? man, with his varied wants, exahed nature and immortal 
destiny ! Paul tells us expressly, that the principle which we have 
named, lies at the bottom of the statute. See 1 Corinthians ix. 9, 10 — 
" For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth 
of the ox Hill treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen 1 Or 
saith he it altogether for our sakes? that he that ploweth should ploisti in 

5 



HOPE, ajid thai he that threshcth in hope should be partakek of his 

HOPE." 

(2.) " If thy brother he waxen poor, and J alien in decay with thee, 
then thou shah relieve him, yea, though he be a STRANGER or a 
SOJOURNER, that he may live with thee Take thou no usury oj him, 
or increase, but fear thy God. Thou shall not give him thy money upon 
usury, nor lend lilm thy victuals for increase.^'' Lev. xxv. 35 — 37. Or, 
in other words, " relief at your hands is his right, and your duty — you 
shall nat take advantage of his necessities, but cheerfully supply ihem." 
Now, we ask, by what process of pro-slavery legerdemain, this benevo- 
lent regulation can be made to be in keeping with the doctrine of work 
WITHOUT PAY ? Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to belief, 
and in the same breath, authorize them to ^^use his services without 
wages ;^' force him to work, and rob him of ale his earnings? 
Judge ye. 

V. — Were masters the PROPRIETORS of servants as their 
[legal property ? 

The discussion of this topic has been already somewhat anticipated 
under the preceding heads ; but a variety of considerations, not within 
the range of our previous inquiries, remain to be noticed. 

I. Servants icere not subjected to the uses, nor liable to the contin- 
gencies of 'property. 

(1 . ) They were never taken in paymentfor their masters^ debts, though 
children were sometimes taken (without legal authority) for ths debts 
of a father. 2 Kings iv. 1 ; Job xxiv. 9 ; Isaiah 1. 1 ; Matt, xviii. 25. 

Cases are recorded in which creditors took from debtors property of 
all kinds, to satisfy their demands. In Job xxiv. 3, cattle are taken ; 
in Prov. xxii. 27, household furniture ; in Lev. xxv. 25 — 28, the pro- 
ductions of the soil; in Lev. xxv. 27 — 30, b.ouses ; in Exodus xxii. 
26 — 29, and Deut. xxiv. 10 — 13, and Matt. v. 40, clothing ; but ser- 
vants were taken in no instance. 

(2.) Servants rvere never given as pledges. Property oi^nM sorts was 
given and held in pledge. We find in the Bible, household furniture, 
clothing, cattle, money, signets, and personal ornaments, with divers 
other articles of property, used as pledges for value received. But no 
servants, 

(3.) All lost T-Rov^RTY was to be restored. Oxen, asses, sheep, rai- 
ment, and " whatsoever lost things," are specified — servants not, Deut. 



57 

xxii. IS. Besides, the Israelites were expressly forbidden to take back 
the runaway servant to his master. Deut. xxiii. 15. 

(4.) The Israelites never gave away their servants as presents. They 
made princely presents of great variety. Lands, houses, all kinds of 
animals, merchandize, family utensils, precious metals, and grain, ar- 
mor, &c. are among their recorded gifts. Giving presents to superiors 
and persons of rank when visiting them, and at other times, was a stand- 
incr usage. 1 Sam. x. 27 ; 1 Sam. xvi. 20 ; 2 Chron. xvii. 5. Abra- 
ham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27 ; Jacob to the viceroy of Egypt, Gen. 
xliii. 11 ; Joseph to his brethren and father. Gen. xlv. 22, 23; Benha- 
dad to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9 ; Ahaz to Tiglath Pilezer, 2 Kings vi. 
8; Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings, x. 13 ; Jeroboam to Ahi- 
jah, 1 Kings xiv. 3 ; Asa to Benhadad, 1 Kings xv. 18, 19. But no 
servants were given as presents — though thtit was a prevailing fashion 
in the surrounding nations. Gen. xii. 16 ; Gen. xx. 14. 

Objection 1. Laian gave handmaids to his daughters, Jacob's 
wives. ■ Without enlarging on the nature of the polygamy then preva- 
lent, it is enough to say that tl>e handmaids of wives, at that time, were 
themselves regarded as wives, though of inferior dignity and authority. 
That Jacob so regarded his handmaids, is proved by his curse upon Reu- 
ben, (Gen. xlix. 4, and Chron. v. 1,) also by the equality of their chil- 
dren with those of Rachel and Leah. But hail it been otherwise — had 
Laban given them as articles of property, then, indeed, the example of 
this " good old patriarch and slaveholder," Saint Laban, would have 
been a fore-closer to all argument. 

Ah ! we remember his jealousy for religion — his holy indignation 
when he found that his " gods" were stolen ! How he mustered his 
clan, and plunged over the desert in hot pursuit, seven days, by forced 
marches ; how he ransacked a whole caravan, sifting the contents of 
every tent, little heeding such small matters as domestic privacy, or fe- 
male seclusion, for lo ! the zeal of his '' images" had eaten him up ! 

No wonder that slavery, in its Bible-navigation, drifting dismantled be- 
fore the free gusts, should scud under the lee of such a pious worthy t© 
haul up and refit ; invoking his protection, and the benediction of his 

^'GODS!" 

Objection 2, Servants were enumerated in inventories of property. 
If that proves servants property, it proves wives property. " Thou shall 
not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, 
?wr his man servaiit, nor his maid. servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor 
any thing that is thy neighbor's." Exodus xx. 17. An examination of 



83 

£ll the places in Avhich SPrvants are included among beasfs, chattels^ 
&c., will show, that in inventories of mere frojierty, .^ervants are not in- 
cluded, or it' included, it is in such u way, as to show tiiat they are not 
re^'urde I ixs properly. Eccl. ii. 7,8. But when the design is to show^ 
not merely tlie wealth, but the greatness of any personage, that he is 9- 
min of distinction, a ruler, a prince, servants are spoken of, as well as 
property. In a word, ifr/c/H* alone are spoken of, !)o mention is made 
of servants ; if greatness, servants and property. Gen. xiii. 2. " And 
Abraham was very rich hi cattle, in silver, and in gold.'' No mention 
ot servants. So in llie fifth verse Lors riches are enumerated, "And 
Lot also had jiocks, and herds, and tents." In the seventh verse ser- 
vants are meniioned, " And there was a strife between the HEftDMEN of 
Abraham's cattle and the hekdmen of Lot's cattle." See also Josh, xxiii 
S ; Gen. xxxiv. 23 ; Job. xiii. 12 ; 2 Cinon. xxi. 3 ; xxxii. 27 — 29 ; 
Job i. 3 — 5 ; Deut. viii. 12 — 17 ; Gen. xxiv. 35, and xxvi. 13, and 
XXX. 43. 

Divers facts dropped incidentally, show that when servants are men- 
tioned in connection with property, it is in such a way as to distinguish 
them from it. When Jacoi) was about to leave Laban, liis wives say, 
" All the riches whicli tliou hast taken Irom our lather, that is ours and 
our children^'s." Then (ollovvs an inventory of property. " AU his 
cattle," " all his goods," " the cattle of his getting," &c. He had 
a large number of servants at the time, but they are not included with 
his property. Compare Gen. xxx. 43, with Gen. xxxi. 16 — 18. 

VV'iien h) sent messengers to JEsau, in order to secure his re- 
spect, and impress him with an idea of iiis state and sway, he bade 
them toll him not only of his riches, but of his greatness ; that Ja- 
cob had *^ oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men servants, and maidser- 
vants." Gen. xxxii. 4, 5. Yet in the present which he sent, tliere 
were no servants 5 though he seems to have aimed to give it as 
much variety as possible. Gen. xxxii. 14, 15; see also Gen. xxxvi. 
6,7 ; Gen. xxxiv. 23. As flocks ;ii.d herds were the staples of wealth, 
a large number of servants presupposed large possessions of cattle, 
which would require many herdsmen. Further. When servants are 
spoken of in connection with mere properly, the terms used to express 
the latter do not include the former. 

The Hebrew word Mickna is an illustration. It is a derivative 
of Kana, to procure, to buy, and its mvanlng is, a possession, wealth, 
riches. It occurs more than forty times in the Old Tes ament — 
and is applied always to mere property — generally to domestic anl- 



39 

mals, but never to servants. In some instances, servants are men- 
tioned in distinction from the Mickna. Sec Gen. xii. 5. " And Abra- 
ham took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son. And all their sub- 
stance that they had gathered, and the souls that they hadgotten in Ha. 
ran, and they went forthto go into the land of Canaan.^' Substance ga^ 
theredixtid souls gotten! Many will have it, that these souls were a part 
of Abrahiim's substance (notwithstanding the pains here taken to sepa- 
rate them from it) — that they were slaves — probably captives in war, and 
now, by right of conquest, taken with him in his migiatiun as part of his 
family effects. Who but slaveholders, either actually, or in lieart, would 
torture into the principle and practice of slavery, such a haimless 
phras3 as " tiie souls that they hadgotten ?" Until the slave trade breathed 
its haze upon the vision of the church, and smote her whh palsy and decay, 
commentators saw no slavery in, " The souls that they had got- 
ten." In the Targum of Onkelos* it is thus rendered, *' The 
souls whom they had brought to obey the law in Haran." In the Tar- 
gum of JonaihaUj thus : ''The souls whom they had made proselytes in 
Haran." In the Targum of Jerusah^m, " Ths souls proselyted in Ha- 
ran." Jarchi, placed by Jewish Rabbis at the head of their commen- 
tators, thus renders it: "The souls whom they had brought under the 
Divine wings." Jerome, one of the most learned of the Cnristian fathers : 
" The persons whom they had prosel^'ted." The Persian version thus 
gives the whole verse, "And Abraham took Sarah his wilie, and Lot 
his brother's son, and all their wealth which they had accumulated, and 
the souls which they had made." The Vulgate version thus translates 
it, " Oniversam substantiam quam possederant et animas quas fecerant 
in Haran." " The entire wealih which they possessed, and the souls 
which ihey had made." The Syriac thus, " All their possessions which 
they possessed, and the souls v/hich they had made in Haran." The 
Arabic, " All their property which they had acquired, and the souls 
v/hom they had made in Haran." The Samaritan, " All the wealth 
which they had gathered, and the souls which they had made in 
Haran." Menochius, a commentator who wrote before our present 
translation of the English Bible, renders it as follows : — " Quas de idol- 

* The Targums are Clialdee paraphrases of parts of the Old Testament. The Targum of 
Onki.-los is for the must part, a very accurate and foithful tratisiatiLn < f the original, and was 
probably mide at about the commencement of the Christian era. Tlie '1 argura of Jonathan 
Ben Uzziel bears about the same dale. The Targum of Jei usalem wa.-> probably about five laun 
dred yiais later. 

Tiie Israelites, during Ihe-r long captivity in Babybn, lost asa body, their knowledge of their 
own language These translations of the Hebrew Scriptures into tne Chaldee, the Janguagd 
which they acquired in Babyl m, were thus called for by the necessity of the case. 



40 

•otraria converterunt."* "Those whom they have converted from idol- 
atry." — Paulus Fugius.| " Quas instilueranl in reh'gione." — "Those 
whom they had itistructed in religion." — " Luke Francke, a German 
commentator who lived two centuries ago. " Quas legi subjicerant." — 
" Those whom they had brought to obey the law." 

2. The condition of servants in their masters'' families, the privileges 
which they shared in common with the children, and their recognition as 
equals by the highest officers of the government — make the doctrine that 
they were mere commodities, an absurdity. The testimony of Paul, in 
Gal. iv. 1, gives an insight into the condition of servants. " Now I say 
unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, differeth nothing 
FROM A SERVANT, though he Ijc lord of all." 

That Abraliam's servants were voluntary, — that their interests were 
identified with those of their master's family — that they were regarded 
with great affection by the household, and that the utmost confidence 
was reposed in them, is shown in the arming of 318 of them for the: re- 
covery of Lot and his family from captivity. See Gen. xiv. 14, 15. 

When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess 
Rubekah did not disdain to say to him, "Drink, my Lord," as "she 
hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink," 
and "she hasted and emptied her pitcher, and ran again unto the well, 
and drew for all his camels." Laban, the brother of Rebekah, prepar- 
ed the house for his reception, iingirded his camels, and brought him 
"water to wash his feet, and the men^sfeet that were with him!" 

In the 9th chapter of 1 Samuel, we have an account of a high festi- 
val in the city of Zuph, at which Samuel, the chief judge and ruler in 
Israel, presided. None sat down at the feast but those that were bid- 
den. And only "about thirty persons" were invited. Quite a'select par- 
Xy\ — the elite of the city of Zuph ! Saul and his servant arrived at 
Zuph just as the party was assembling ; and hoth of them, at Sam- 
uel's solicitation, accom])any him as invited guests. " And Samuel 
took Saul and his servant, and brought thebi into the parlor (!) and 
made them sit in the chiefest seats among those that were bidden." 
A servant invited by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to 
•dine publicly with a select party, in company with his master, who was 

* See his " Brevis explicatio sensus literalis totius Scripture." 

+ Tlu^ eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England by Cranmer, then Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, to superintend! he translation of the Bible into English, under ihn pstrona^e of Henry 
the Eighth. He had hardly commenced the work when he died. This was nearly a century 
before the dale of our present translation. 



41 

at ihe same time anointed King of Israel ; and this servant introduced 
by SanDuel into tlic parlor, and assigned, witli liis master, to tlie chief' 
est seek at tlie table ! This was " one of the servants" of Kinh, &aul's 
father ; not the steward or the chief of them — not at all a picked man, 
but " one of the servants ;" any one that could be most easily spared, 
as no endowments specially rare would be hkely to find scope in look- 
ing after asses. 

Again : we learn from 1 Kings xvi. S, 9, that Elah, the King of Is- 
rael, was slain by Zimri, one of his chief officers, at a festive enter- 
tainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or liead servant, with whom 
he seems to have been on terms of familiarity. Without detailing other 
cases, we refer the reader lo the intercourse between Gideon and his 
servant. — Judges vii. 10, 11. — Jonathan and his servant.' — 1 Samuel 
xiv. 1 — 14. — Elisha and his servant. 

3. The condition of the Gibennites, as subjects of the Hebrew common- 
wealth, shows that they were neither articles of property, nor even invo. 
LUNTARY servants. Tlie condition of the inhabitants of Gibeon, Che- 
phirah, Beeroth, and Kirjatlijearim, under the Israelites, is quoted in 
triumph by the advocates of slavery ; and truly they are right welcome 
to all the crumbs tliat can be gleaned from it. Milton's devils made 
desperate snatches at fruit that turned to ashes on their lips. The spirit 
of slavery raves under tormenting gnawings, and casts about in blind 
phrenzy for something to ease, or even to mock them. But for this, it 
would never have clutched at the Gibeonites, for even the incantations 
of the demon cauldron, could not extract from their case enough to tan- 
talize starvation's self. But to the question. What was the condition 
of the Gibeonites under the Israelites? 

(1.) It was voluntary. It was their own proposition to Joshua to be- 
come servants. Joshua ix. 8, 11. Their proposition was accepted, but 
the kind of service which they should perform, was not specified until 
their gross imposition came to light ; they were then assigned to menial 
offices in the tabernacle. 

(2.) They were not domestic servants in the families of the Israelites. 
They still continued to reside in thsir own cities, cultivating their own 
fields, lending their flocks and herds, and exercising the functions of a 
distinct, though not independent community. They were subject to the 
Jewish nation as tributaries. So far from being distributed among the 
Israelites, their family relations broken up, and their internal organiza- 
tion as a distinct people abolished, they seem to have remained a sepa- 
rate, and, in some respects, an independent community for many 



42 

centuries. When they were attacked by the Amorites, they applied to 
the Israelites as confederates for aid — it was promptly rendered, their 
enemies routed, and themselvts left unmolested in the occupation of 
their cities, while all Israel returned to Gilgal. Joshua x. 6 — 18. Long 
afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and God sent upon Israel a three 
years' famine for it. David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do 
for you, and wherewiih shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless 
the inheritance of the Lord ?" At their demand, he delivered up to 
them, seven of the royal family, five of them the sons of Michal, his own 
fornQer wife. 2 Samuel xxi. 1 — 9. The whole transaction was a formal 
recognition of the Gibeonites as a separate people. There is no inti- 
mation that they served families, or individuals of the Israelites, but only 
the " house of God," or the Tabernacle. This .vas established first at 
Gilgal, a day's journey from the cities of the Gibeonites; and then at 
Shiloh, nearly two days' journey from them ; where it continued about 
350 years. During all this period, the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient 
cities and territory. Only a few, comparatively, cou'd have been absent 
from their cities at any one time in attendance on the tabernacle. 

(1.) VVhenever allusion is made to them in the history, the main bo» 
dy are spoken of as at home. 

(2.) It is preposterous to suppose that their tabernacle services could 
jiave furnished employment for all the inhabitants of these four cities, 
One of them " was a great city, as one of the royal cities ;" so large, 
that a confederacy of five kings, apparently the most powerful in the 
land, was deemed necessary for its destruction. It is probable that the 
men were divided into classes, and thus ministered at the tabernacle in 
rotation — each class a kvf days or weeks at a time. This service was 
their national tribute to the Israelites, rendered for the privilege of resi- 
dence and protection under their government. No service seems to 
have been required of Ihe females. As these Gibeonites were Canaan- 
ites, and as they had greatly exasperateii the Israelites by impudent im- 
position, hypocrisy, rmd lying, we n:ight assuredly expect that they would 
reduce //iPw to the condition of chattels and property, if there was any 
case in which God [)ermitted them to do so. 

7. Bec'tuse, throughout the Mosaic system, God warns them against 
holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the 
Egyptians. How often are the Israelites pointed back to the grindings 
of their prison-housft ! What motives to the exercise of justice and 
kindness towards their servants, are held out to their fears in threatened 
judgments ; to their hopes in promised good ; and to all within theip 



43 

that could feel, by those oft repeated words of tenderness and terror ! 
" For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt" — waking anew the me- 
mory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them. 

That the argument derived from the condition of the Israelites in 
Egypt, and God's condemnation of it, may be appreciated, it is import- 
ant that the Egyptian bondage should be analyzed. We shall then be 
able to ascertain, of what rights the Israelites were plundered, and what 
they retained. 

Egyptian bondage analyzed. (1.) The Israelites were not dispersed 
among the families of Egypt, the properly of individual owners.'^' They 
formed a separate community. See Gen. xlvi. 35. Ex. viii. 22, 24, 
.and ix. 26, and x. 23, and xi. 7, and ii. 9, and xvi. 22, and xvii. 5. 

(2.) They had the exclusive possession of the land of Goshen,-\ one 
of the richest and most productive parts of Egypt. Gen. xlv. 18, and 
xlvii.6, 11, 27. Ex. xii. 4, 19,22, 23, 27. 

(3.) They lived in permanent dwellings. These were houses, not 
tents. In Ex. xii. 6, the two side posts, and the upper door posts of 
the houses are mentioned, and in the 22d, the two side posts and the 
lintel. Each family seems to have occupied a house by itself — Acts 
vii. 20, Ex. xii. 4 — and from the regulation about the eating of the Pas- 
sover, they could hardly have been siriall ones — Ex. xii. 4 — and proba- 
bly contained separate apartments, and places for seclusion. Ex. ii. 2, 
3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well apparelled. Ex. xii. 
11. To have had their own burial grounds. Ex. xiii. 19, and xiv. 11. 

(4.) They owned "a mixed multitude of flocks and herds," and ''very 
much cattle.^' Ex. xii. 32, 37, 38. 

(^5.) They had their own form of government, and preserved their 
tribe and family divisions, and their internal organization throughout, 
though still a province of Egypt, and trihutary to it. Ex. ii. 1, and xii. 
19, 21, and vi. 14, 2§, and v. 19, and iii. 16, 18. 

(6.) They seem to have had in a considerable measure, the disposal 
of their own time, — Ex. xxiii. 4, and iii. 16, 18, and xii. 0, and ii. 9, 

* The Egyptians evidently had domesHc servants living in thtir families ; these jnay have 
been slaves; allusion is made to them in Exodus ix. 14, 20, 21. But none of the Israelites 

were included in this class. 

t Tlie land of Goshen was a large tract of country, east of the Pelusian arm of the Nile, 
and between it and the head of the Red Sea, and the lower border of Palestine. The pro- 
bable centre of that portion, occupied by the Israelites, could hardly have been less than 60 
miles from the city. From the best authorities, it would seem that the extreme western 
boundary of Goshen must have been many miles distant from Egypt. See "Exodus of the 
Israelites out if Egypt," an ab!e article by Professor Robinson, in the Biblical Kepository for 
October, 1832. 

6 



44 

and iv. 27, 29 — 31. Also to have practised the fine ait^. Ex. xxxii. 
4, and xxxv. 32 — 35. 

(7,.) They were all armed. Ex. xxxii. 27. 

(8.) All the females seem to have knmon something of domestic re. 
finements ; they were familiar with instruments of music, and skilled in 
the working offmefalmcs. Ex. xv. 20, and 35, 36. 

(9.) They held their possessions independently, and the Egyptians 
seem to have regarded them as inviolable. This we infer from the fact 
tiiat there is no intimation that the Egyptians dispossessed them of their 
habitations, or took away their flocks, or herds, or crops, or implements 
of agriculture, or any article of property. 

(10.) Service seems to have been exacted from none hut adult males. 
Nothing is said from which the bond service of females could be infer- 
red ; the hiding of Moses three months by his mother, and the payment 
of wages to her by Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a supposition. 
Ex. ii. 29. 

(11.) So far from being fed upon a given allowance, their food was 
abundant, and had great variety. " They sat by the flesh-pots," and 
" did eat bread to the full." Ex. xvi. 3, and xxiv. 1, and xvii. 5, and 
iv. 29, and vi. 14. Also, " they did eat fish freely, and cucumbers, 
and melons, and leeks, and onions, and garlic." Num. xi. 4, 5, and x. 
18, and xx. 5. 

(12.) That the great body of the people were not in the service of the 
Egyptians, we infer (1) from the fact, that the extent and variety of 
their own possessions, together with such a cultivation of their crops as 
would provide them with bread, and such care of their immense flocks 
and herds, as would secure their profitable increase, must bave fur- 
nished constant employment for the main body of the nation. 

(2.) During the plague of darkness, God informs us that " all the 
children of Israel had light in their dwellings." We infer that they 
were there to enjoy it. 

(3.) It seems improbable that the making of brick, the only service 
named .during the latter part of their sojourn in Egypt, could have fur- 
nished permanent emplovment for the bulk of the nation. See also 
Ex. iv. 29—31. 

Besides, when Eastern nations employed tributaries, it was, as now, 
in the use of the levy, requiring them to furnish a given quota, drafied 
oiT periodically, so that comparatively but a small portion of the nation 
would be absent at any one time. 



45 

Probably there was the same requii«ition upon the Israelites for one- 
fifth part of the proceeds of then- labor, that was laid upon the Egyptians. 
See Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of taking it out of their crops, (Goshen 
being better {oy pasturage than crops) they exacted it of them in brick 
making ; and it is quite probable that only the poorer Israelites were re- 
quired to work for the Egyptians at all, the wealthier being wble to pay 
their tribute, in money. See Exod. iv. 27 — 31. 

This was the bondage in Egypt. Contrast it with American slavery. 
Have our slaves "very much cattle," and "a mixed multitude of flocks 
and herds?" Do they live in commodious houses of their own ? Do 
they " sit by thejlesh-pots,'' " eat fish freely," and « eat bread to the 
Jail V Do they live in a separate community, at a distance from their 
masters, in their distinct tribes, under their own rulers and officers? 
Have they the exclusive occupation of an extensive and fertile tract of 
country for the culture of their own crops, and for rearing immense 
herds of their own cattle— and all these held independently of their 
masters, and regarded by them as inviolable? Are our female slaves 
free from all exactions of labor and liabilities of outrage ?— and when- 
ever employed, are they paid wages, as was the Israelitish woman, 
when employed by the king's daughter? Exod. ii. 9. Have the fe- 
males entirely, and the males to a considerable extent, the disposal of 
their own time ? Have they the means for cultivating social refine- 
ments, for practising the ^Re arts, and for intellectual and moral im- 
provement ? 

The Israelites, under the bondage of Egypt, enjoyed all 
THESE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. True, " their lives were made bitter, 
and all the service wherein they made them serve was with rigor." 
But what was that, when compared with the incessant toil of American 
slaves, the robbery of all their time and earnings, and even the " power 
to own any thing, or acquire any thing" — ihe " quart of corn a-day," 
the legal allowance of food!* — their only chlhmg (or one half the year, 
"one shirt and one pair of pantaloons !"| — the two hours and a half only 
for rest and refreshment in the twenty-four !:]: — their dwellings, hovels, 
unfit for human residence, commonly with but one apartment, where 
both sexes and all ages herd promiscuously at night, like the beasts of 

* The law of North Carolina. See Haywood's Manual, 524—5. 

t The law of Louisiana. See Martin's Digest, 610. 

t The whole amount of time secured to slaves by the law of Louisiana. ee Act of July 7, 
1806. Martin's Digest, 610—12. 



46 

the field. Add to this, the mental ignorance, and moral degradation ; 
the daily separations of kindred, tlie revelries of lust, the lacerations 
and baptisms of blood, sanctioned by the laws of the South, and patron- 
ized by its pubhc sentiment. What, we ask, was the bondage of Egypt 
when compared with this? And yet for her oppression of the poor, 
God smote her with plagues, and trampled her- as the mire, till she 
passed away in hia wrath, and the place that knew her in her pride, 
knew her no more. Ah ! "I have seen the afflictions of my people, and 
I have heard their groanings, and am come down to deliver them." He 
DID COME, and Egypt sank, a ruinous heap, and her blood closed over 
her. 

If such was God's retribution for the oppression of heathen Egypt, 
of how much sorer punishment shall a Christian people be thought wor- 
thy, who cloak with religion, a system, in comparison with which the 
bondage of Egypt dwindles to nothing? 

Let those believe who can, that God gave his people permission to 
hold human beings, robbed of all their rights, while he threatened them 
with wrath to the uttermost, if they practised the far lighter oppression 
of Egypt — which robbed its victims of only the /ea^i and cheapest of 
their rights, and left the /ema/c^ unplundered even of these. What! 
Is God divided against himeslf? When he had just turned Egypt into 
a funeral pile ; while his curse yet blazed upon her unburied dead, and 
his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the smoke of her torment 
went upwards because she had '• robbed the poor," did He license the 
VICTIMS of robbery to rob the poor of all ? As Lawgiver, did he create 
a system tenfold more grinding than that, for which he had just hurled 
Pharaoh headlong, and cloven down his princes, and overwhelmed his 
hosts, and blasted them with His thunder, till " hell was moved to meet 
them at their coming ?" 

Having touched upon the general topics which we design to include 
in this Inquiry, we proceed to examine various Scripture facts and pas- 
sages, which will doubtless be set in array against the foregoing con- 
"olusions. 



41- 



OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 



The advocates of slavery are always at their wits end when they 
try to press the Bible into their service. Every movement sliovvs that 
they are hard-pushed. Their odd conceits and ever varying shifts, their 
forced constructions, lacking even plausibility, their bold assumptions, 
and blind guesswork, not only proclaim their cause desperate, but 
themselves. Some of the Bible defences thrown around slavery by 
ministers of the Gospel, do so torture common sense. Scripture, and 
historical fact, that it were hard to tell whether absurdity, fatuity, igno- 
rance, or blasphemy, predominates, in the compound. Each strives so 
lustily for the mastery, it may be set down a drawn battle. 

How often has it been set up in type, th;it the color of the negro is 
the Cain.mark, propagated downward. Doubtless Cain's posterity started 
an opposition to the ark, and rode out the flood with flying streamers ! 
Why should not a miracle be wrought to point such an argument, and 
fill out for slaveholders a Divine title-deed, vindicating the ways of God 
to men ? 

Objection 1. " Cursed he Canaan, a servant of servants* shall he he 
unto his brethren." Gen, i. 25. 

This prophecy of Noah is the vade mecum of slaveholders, and they 
never venture abroad without it. It is a pocket-piece for sudden occa- 
sion — a keepsake to dote over — a charm to spell-bind opposition, and a 
magnet to attract " whatsoever worketh abomination, or makelh a lie." 
But closely as they cling to it, "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to 
stupify a throbbing conscience — a mocking lullaby, vainly wooing slum- 
ber to unquiet tossings, and crying " Peace, be still," where God wakes 
war, and breaks his thunders. 

Those who plead the curse on Canaan to justify negro slavery, as- 
sume all the points in debate. 

1. That the condition prophesied was slavery, rather than the mere 
rendering of service to others, and that it was the bondage of individuals 
rather than the condition of a nation tributary to another, and in that 
sense its servant. 

2. That the prediction oC ciime justifies it ; that it grants absolution 
to those whose crimes fulfil it. if it does not transform the crimes into 
virtues. How piously the Pharaohs might have quoted God's prophe- 
cy to Abraham, " Thy seed shall be in bondage, and they shall ajjlict 
them for four hundred years.''' And then, what saints were those that 
crucified the Lord of glory ! 



48 

3. That the Africans are descended from Canaan. Whereas Africa 
was peopled from Egypt and Ethiopia, and Mizraim settled Egj-pt, and 
Cush, Ethiopia. See Gen. x. 15 — 19, for the location and boundaries 
of Canaan's posterity. So on tlie assumption that African slavery ful- 
fils the prophecy, a curse pronounced upon one people, is quoted to 
justify its infliction upon another. Perhaps it may oe argued that Ca- 
naan includes all Ham's posterity. If so, the prophecy has not been 
fulfilled. The other sons of Ham settled the Egyptian and Assyrian 
empires, and conjointly with Shorn the Persian, and afterward, to some 
extent, the Grecian and Roman. The history of these nations gives 
no verification of the prophecy. Whereas the history of Canaan's de- 
scendants, for more than three thousand years, is a record of its fulfil- 
ment. First, they were made tributaries by the Israelites. Then Ca- 
naan was the servant of Shem. Afterward, by the Medes and Persians. 
Then Canaan was the servant of Shem, and in part of the other sons of 
Ham. Afterward, by the Macedonians, Grecians, and Romans, suc- 
cessively. Then Canaan was the servant of Japhet, mainly, aud se- 
condarily of the other sons of Ham. Finally, they were subjected by 
the Ottoman dynasty, where they yet remain. Thus Canaan is now 
the servant of Shem and Japhet and the other sons of Ham. 

But it may still be objected, that though Canaan is the only one najned 
in the curse, yet the 22d and 23d verses show that it was pronounced 
upon the posterity of Ham in general. "And Ham, the father oj Ca- 
naan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren with, 
out." — Verse 22. In verse 23, Shem and Japhet cover their father 
with a garment. Verse 24, " And Noah aiiwke from his wine, and 
knew what his younger son had done unto him, and said," &c. 

It is argued that this younger son cannot be Canaan, as he was not 
the son, but the grandson of Noah, and therefore it must be Ham.. We 
answer, whoever that " younger son" was, or whatever he did. Canaan 
alone was named in the curse. Besides, the Hebrew word Ben, signifies 
son, grandson, great-grandson, or any one of the posterity of an indi- 
vidual. Gen. xxix. 5, " And he said unto them^ Know ye Laban, the 
SON of Nahor ?" Yet Laban was the grandson of Nahor. Gen. xxiv. 
15, 29. In 2 Sam. xix. 24, it is said, " Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, 
came down to meet the king." But Mephibosheth was the son of Jona- 
than, and thegran^Zsonof Saul. 2 Sam. ix. 6. So Ruth iv. 17. ''There 
is a SON born lo Naomi." This was the son of Ruth, the daughter-in- 
law of Naomi. Ruth iv. 13, 15. So 2 Sam. xxi. 6. "Let seven men 
of his {SauVs) sons be delivered unto us," &c. Seven of Saul's 



49 



grandsons were delivered up. 2 Sam. xxi. 8, 9. So Gen.^ xxi. 28, 
" And hast not suffered me to kiss my sons and my daughters ;" and m 
the 55th verse, « And early in the morning Laban rose up and kissed his 
soxs," &c. These were his gratidsons. So 2 Kings ix. 20, " The 
driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi." So 1 Kings xix. 16. But Jehu 
was the grandson of Nimshi. 2 Kings ix. 2, 14. Who will forbid the 
inspired writer to use the same word when speaking of Noah's grandson ? 
Further, if Ham were meant, what propriety in calling him the younger 
son ? The order in which Noah's sons are always mentioned, makes 
Ham the second, and not the younger son. If it be s^id that Bible usage 
is variable, and that the order of birth is not always preserved in enume- 
rations ; the reply is, that, enumeration in the order of birth, is the rule, in 
any other oVdcr the exception. Besides, if the younger member of a 
family, takes precedence of older ones in the family record, it is a mark 
of pre-eminence, either in original endowments, or providential instru- 
mentality. Abraham, though sixty years younger than his eldest bro- 
ther, and probably the youngest of Terab's sons, stands first in the family 
genealo jy . Nothing "in Ham's history warrants the idea of his pre-emi- 
nence ^besides, the Hebrew word Hakkaton, rendered younger, means 
the little, small. The same word is used in Isaiah xl. 22. "A little one 
shall lecome a thousand.'^ Also in Isaiah xxii. 24. ^^ All vessels oj small 
quantity.'' So Psalms cxv. 13. -He will bless them that fear the Lord, 
both small and great." Also Exodus xviii. 22. " But every s.mall mat. 
ter they shall judge." It would be a perfectly literal rendering of Gen. 
ix. 24, if it were translated thus, " when Noah knew what his little son,* 
or grandson {Beno hakkaton) had done unto him, he said, cursed be Ca- 

naan," <tc. 

Even if the Africans were the descendants of Canaan, the assumption 
that their enslavement is a fulfilment cf this prophecy, lacks even plausi- 
bilit V, for, only a meio fraction of the inhabitants of Africa have at any one 
time been the slaves of other nations. If the objector say in reply, that 
a large majority of the Africans have always been slaves at home, we an- 
swer, 1st. It is false in point of fact, though zealously bruited often to 
serve a turn. 2d. If it were true, how does it help the argument ? The 
prophecy was, « Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unta 
his BRETHREN," not unto himself ! 

* The French language in this respect foUows the same ana'.ogy. Our word ^and/on being 
in French, petit Jils, (little son.) 



50 

Objection 1 1. — '^ If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, 
and he die under his hand, he shall surely he punished. Notwithstanding, 
if he continue a day or two, he shall not be j)unished, for he' is his 
money " Exodus xxi. 20, 21. 

Arguments drawn from the Mosaic system in support of slavery, origi- 
nate in a misconception both of its genius, as a tvhole, and of the design 
and scope of its most simple provisions. The verses quoted above, afford 
an illustration in point. 

What was the design of this regulation ? Was it to grant masters an 
indulgence to beat servants with impunity 1 and an assurance, that if they 
beat them to death, the offence should not be capital ? This is substan- 
tially what some modern Doctors tell us. What Deity do such men 
worship ? Some blood -gorged Moloch, enthroned on human hecatombs, 
and snuffing carnage for incense? Did He who thundered out from Si- 
nai's flames, " Thou shalt not kill," offer a bounty on murder ? Who- 
ever analyzes the Mosaic system — the condition of the people for whom 
it was made — their inexperience in government — ignorance of judicial 
proceedings — laws of evidence, &c., will find a moot court in se.ssion, 
trying law points — settling definitions, or laying down rules of evidence, 
in almost every chapter. ?J umbers xxxv. 10 — 22; Deuterononiyxi.il, 
and xix. 4 — 6 ; Leviticus xxiv. 19 — 22 ; Exodus, xxi. 18, 19, are a few, 
out of many cases stated, with tests furnished by which to detect the intent, 
in actions brought before them. Tiie detail gone into, in the verses quo- 
ted, is manifestly to enable the judges to get at the 7notive of the action, 
and find out whether the master designed to kill. 

1. "If a man smite his servant with a rod." — The instrument 
used, gives a clue to the intent See Numbers xxxv. 16, IS. It was 
a rod, not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other death- 
weapon — hence, from the kind of instrument, no design to kill would be 
inferred ; for intent to kill would hardly have taken a rod for its weapon. 
But if the servant dies under his hand, then the unfitness of the instru- 
ment, instead of being evidence in his favOr, is point blank against 
him ; for, to strike him with a rod until he dies, argues 9. great many blows 
laid on with great violence, and this kept up to the death-gasp, esta. 
blishes the point of intent to kill. Hence the sentence, " He shall surely 
be punished." The case is plain and strong. But if he continued a 
day or two, the length of time that he lived, together with the kiiid of in- 
strument used, and the fact that the master had a pecuniary interest in 
\\\slife, ("he is his money,'''') all, made out a strong case of circumstan- 
tial evidence, showing tliat the master did not design to kill ; and re- 



51 

quired a corresponding decision and sentence. A single remark on the 
word « punished :" in Exodus xxi. 20, 21, the Hebrew word here ren- 
dered punished, (Nakam,) is not so rendered in another instance. Yet 
it occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament — in ahnost every in- 
stance, it is translated avenge — in a few, " to take vengeance,'" or " to re- 
venge,'' and in this instance alone, ^'punish." As it stands in our 
translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the master — the master in 
the 21st verse, is to be punished, and in the 22d not to be punished ; 
whereas the preceding pronoun refers neither to the master nor to the 
servant, but to the crime, and the word rendered punished, should have 
been rendered avenged. The meaning is this : If a man smite his ser- 
yant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, it (the death) 
shall surely be avenged, or literally, hj avenging it shall be avenged ; 
that is, the death of the servant shall be avenged by the death of the 
master. So in the next verse — " If he continue a day or two," his 
death shall not be avenged by the death of the master, for in that case 
the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not mwder, as in the 
first instance. In the following verse, another case of personal injury 
is stated, not intentional, nor extending to life or limb, a mere acci- 
dental hurt, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money ; and yet our 
translators employ the same phraseology in both places. One, an in- 
stance of deliberate, wanton, kiUing hy piecemeal. The other and acci- 
dental, and comparatively slight injury— of the mflicter, in both cases, 
they say the same thing ! "-He sliall surely be punished.'" Now, just 
the difference which common sense would expect to find in such cases, 
where God legislates, is strongly marked in the original. In the case 
of the servant wilfully murdered, God says, " It (the death) shall surely 
be avenged,'" (Nalcam,) that is, the life oj the wrong doer shall expiate 
the crime. The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the 
greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators, whether 
individuals or communites, to destruction. In the case of the uninten- 
tional injury, in the following verse, God says, '• He shall surely be" 
fined, (Aunash.) " He shall pay as the judges determine." The sim- 
ple meaning of the word Aunash, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. 
xxii. 19. " They shall amerce him in one hundred shekels," and in 
2 Chron. xxxvi. 3 — " He condemned {mulcted) the land in a hundred 
talents of gold." This is the general use of the word, and its primary 
signification. That avenging the death of the servant, was neither im- 
prisonment, nor stripes, nor amercing the master in damages, but that 
,.;i was taking the master'' s life we infer. 



53 

1. Fvom ihe Biile usage o? the word Nakam. See Genesis iv. 24 5 
Joshua X. 13 ; Judges xv. 7 — xvi. 2S; 1 Samuel xiv. 24 — xviii. 25 — 
XXV. 31; 2 Samuel iv. 8; Judges v. 2 ; 1 Samuel xxv. 26 — 33, 
&c. &c. 

2. From the express statute in such case provided. Leviticus xxiv. 
17. " He that kil/eth any man shall surely be put to death." Also 
Numbers xxxv. 30, 31. " Whoso killeih a^y person, the murderer 
shall be put to death. Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction /or the 
life of a murderer which is guilty of death, hut he shall surely be fut to 
death." 

3. The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, " Death by the 
sword shall assuredly be adjudged." The Targum of Jerusalem thus, 
" Vengeance shall be taken for him to the uttermost." Jarchi gives 
the same rendering. The Samaritan version thus, " He shall die the 
death." 

Again, the last clause in the 21st verse ("for he is his money") is 
often quoted to prove that the servant is his master's pro^jer/?/, and there- 
fore, if he died, the master was not to be punished. Because, 1st. A 
man may dispose of his property as he pleases. 2d. If the servant 
died of tlie injury, the master's loss was a sufFicient punishment. A 
word about the premises, before we notice the inferences. The as- 
sumption is, that the phrase, "he is his money," proves not only that 
the servant is tvortk money to the master, but that he is an article oj pro. 
perty. If the advocates of slavery will take this principle of interpreta- 
tion into the Bible, and turn it loose, let them either give bonds for its 
behavior, or else stand and draw in self-defence, "lost it turn again and 
rend" them. If they endorse for it at one point, they must stand spon- 
sors all around the circle. It will be too late to cry for quarter when 
they find its stroke clearing the whole table, and tilting them among 
the sweepings beneath. The Bible abounds with such expressions as 
the following : " This (bread) is my body ;" " this (wine) is my blood ;" 
" all they (the Israelites) are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead;" '• this 
is life eternal, that they might know thee;" "this (the water of the well 
of Bethlehem) is the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their 
lives ;" " 1 am the lily of the valleys;" "a garden enclosed is my sis- 
ter;" " my tears have been my meat ;" "the Lord God is a sun and a 
shield;" "God is love;" "the Lord /s my rock;" " tiie seven good 
ears are seven years, and the seven good kine tire seven years ;" " the 
seven thin and ill-favored kine are seven years, and the seven empty 
ears blasted by the east wind shall he seven years of famine ;" "he 



53 

shall he head, and thou shall be tail ;" '" the Lord will be a wall of fire ;" 
♦' they shall be one flesh ;" " the tree of the field is man's life ;" " God 
is a consuming fire ;" " he is his money," &c. A passion for the exact 
llteralities o^ Bible language is so amiable, it were hard not to gratify 
it in this case. The vA^ords in the original are (Kaspo-hu,) "his silver 
is he." The objector's principle of interpretation is, a philosopher's 
stone ! Its miracle touch transmutes five feet eight inches of fiesh and 
bones into solid silver ! Quite a permanent servant, if not so nimble 
with all — reasoning against ^^ forever" is forestalled henceforth, and, 
Deut. xxiii. 15, utterly outwitted. 

Who in his senses believes that in the expression, " He is his money" 
the object was to inculcate the doctrine that the servant was a chattel? 
The obvious meaning is, he is worth money to his master, and since, if 
the master killed him, it would take money out of his pocket, the j)ecu- 
niary loss, the kind of instrument used, and the fact of his living some 
time after the injury, (as, if the master meant to kill, he would be likely 
to do it while about it,) all together make out a strong case of presump- 
tive evidence clearing the master of intent to kill. But let us look at the 
objector's inferences. One is, that as the master might dispose of his 
property as he pleased, he was not to be punished, if he destroyed it. 
Answer. Whether the servant died under the master's hand, or continued 
a day or two, he was equally his master's property, and the objector 
admits that in \he first case the master is to be " surely punished" for 
destroying his own property ! The other inference is, that since the 
continuance of a day or two, cleared the master of i7itent to kill, the loss 
of the slave would be a sufficent punishment for inflicting the injury 
which caused his death. This inference makes the Mosaic law false to 
its own principles. A pecuniary loss, constituted no part of the claims 
of the law, where a person took the life of another. In such case, the law 
utterly spurned money,however large the sum. God would not so cheapen 
human life, as to balance it with such a weight. " Ye shall take no satisfac- 
tion for the life of a murderer, but he shall surely be put to death." See 
Numb. XXXV. 31. Even in excusable homicide, a case of death purely ac- 
cidental, as where an axe slipped from the helve and killed a man, no sum 
of money availed to release from confinement in the city of refuge, until 
the death of the High Priest. Numbers xxxvi. 32. The doctrine that the 
loss of the servant would be a penalty adequate to the desert of the mas- 
ter, admits the master's guilt — his desert oisome punishment, and it pre- 
scribes a kind of punishment, rejected by the law, in all cases where 
•man took the life of man, whether with or witliout int&nt to kill. In 



54 

f5hort, the objector annuls an inlegral part of the system — resolves him- 
self into a legislature, with power in the premises, makes a neiD lawj 
and coolly metes out such penalty as he tliinks fit, both in kind and 
quantity. Mosaic statutes amended, and Divine legislation revised and 
improved ! 

Tiie master who struck out the tooth of a servant, whether inten- 
tionally or not, was required to set him \\go for his tooth's sake. The 
pecuniary loss to the master was the same as though the servant had 
died. Look at the two cases. A master beats his servant so severely, 
that after a day or two he dies of his wounds ; another master acci- 
dentally strikes out his servant's tooth, and bis servant is free — ihe pe- 
cuniary loss of both masters is the same. The objector contends that 
the loss of the slave's services in the first case, is punishment sufiicient 
for the crime of killing liim; yet God commands the same punishment 
for even the accidental knocking out of a tooth\ Indeed, unless the in- 
jury was done inadvertently, the loss of the servant's services is only a 
part of the punishment — mere reparation to the individual for injury 
done ; the main punishment, that &\.x\c\]y judicial, was, reparation to the 
cominunity for injury to one of its members. To set the servant free, 
and thus proclaim his injury, his right to redress, and the measure of it — 
answered not the ends of public justice. The law made an example of 
the offender, that " those that remain might hear and fear." " If a man 
cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done, so shall it be done unto 
him. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth ; as he hath caused 
a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. Ye shall have one 
manner of law as to ell for the stranger as for one of your oum cotin- 
try." Lev. xxiv. 19, 20, 22. Finally, if a master smote out the tooth 
of a servant, the law smote out his tooth — thus redressing the public 
wrong ; and it cancelled the servant's obligation to the master, thus 
giving some compensation for the injury done, and exempting him from 
perilous liabilities in future. 

Objection IU. Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou shall 
have, shall be of ihe heathen that are round about you, of them shall ye 
buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the stran- 
gers that do sojourn among you, of thetn shall ye buy, and of their fami- 
lies that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be 
your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your 
'children after you, to inherit them for a possession ; they shall be your 
'b&ndmen forever. Lev. xxv. 44 — 46. 



The points in these verses, urged as proof, that the Mosaic systeiri 
sanctioned slavery, are 1. The word "Bondmen." 2. "Buy." 3, 
'' Inheritance and possession." 4. "Forever." 

The second point, tlie buying of servants, has been already discussed, 
see page 15. And a part of the third (holding servants as a "posses- 
sion." See p. 36.) We will now ascertain what sanction to slavery is 
derivable from the terms "bondmen," "inheritance," and "forever." 

I. Bondmen. The fact that servants from the heathen are called 
" bondmen,'' while others are called '' servants," is quoted as proof that 
the former were slaves. As the caprices of King James' translators 
were not divinely inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. 
The word rendered bondmen, in this passage, is the same word uniform- 
ly rendered servants elsewhere. To infer from this that the Gentile 
servants were slaves, is absurd. Look at the use of the Hebrew word 
« Ebed," the plural of which is here translated " bondmen." In Isaiah 
xlii. 1, the same word is applied to Christ. " Behold hny servant (bond- 
man, slave?) whom I have chosen, mine elect in whom my soul de- 
iighteth." So Isaiah lii. 13. "Behold my servant (Christ) shall deal 
prudently." In 1 Kings xii. 6, 7, ii is dippWed to King Relwboam. "And 
they (the old men) spake unto him, saying if thou wilt be ii servant 
(Ebed) unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, 
and wilt speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for- 
ever." In 2 Chron. xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, it is applied to the king and all the 
nation. In fine, the word is applied to all persons doing service to 
others — to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to tributaries, to all 
the subjects of governments, to younger sons— defining their relation to 
the first born, who is called Lord and ruler — to prophets, to kings, to 
the Messiah, and in respectful addresses not less than fifty times in the 
Old Testament. 

If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, why had 
their language no word that meant slave ? If Abraham had thousands^ 
and if they abounded under the Mosaic system, why had they no such 
word as slave or slavery ? That language must be wofully poverty 
stricken, which has no signs to represent the most common and familiar 
X3bjects and conditions. To represent by the same word, and without 
figure, proper/j/, and the Dinner of that property, is a solecism. Ziba 
was an " Ebed," yet he " ou-ned" (!) twenty Ebeds. In English, we 
have both the words servant and slave. Why ? Because we have both 
the things, and need signs for them. If the tongue had a sheath, as 
•sivords have scabbards, wc should have some name for it : but our diet 



56 

tionaries give us none. Why ? Because there is no such tldng. But 
the objector asks, " Would not the Israehtes use their word Ehed if they 
spoke of tlie slave of a heathen ?" Answer. Tlic servants of individ. 
uals among the heathen are scarcely ever alluded to. National ser- 
vants or tributaries, are spoken of frequently , but so rarely are their 
domestic servants alluded to, no necessity existed, even if they were 
slaves, for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domes- 
tics, under Aeai/ten Za?w anrf usages, proclaimed their /wZii7t7ie5; their 
locality told their condition ; so that in applying to them the word Ehed, 
there would be no danger of being misunderstood. But if the Israelites 
had not only servants, but besides these, a multitude of slaves, a word 
meaning slave, would have been indispensable for purposes of every 
day convenience. Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many 
sentinels on every side, to warn off foreiga practices. The border 
ground of Canaan, was quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non- 
intercourse between the without and the within, not of persons, but of 
usages. The fact that the Hebrew language had no words correspond- 
ing to slave and slavery, though not a conclusive argument, is no slight 
corroborative. 

II. " Forever." — " They shall be your bondmen forever." This 
is quoted to prove that servants were to serve during their life time, and 
their posterity, from generation to generation. 

No such idea is contained in the passage. The word forever, instead 
of defining the length of individual service, proclaims the permanence 
of the regulation laid down in the two verses preceding, namely, that 
their permanent domestics should be of the Strangers, and not of the Is- 
raelites; and it declares the duration of that general provision. As if 
God had said, " You shall alivays get your permanent laborers from 
the nations round about you — your servants shall always be of that class 
of persons." As it stands in the original, it is plain — " Forever of them 
shall ye serve yourselves." This is the literal rendering of the Hebrew 
words, which, in our version, are translated, " They shall be your bond, 
men forever." 

This construction is in keepmg with the whole of the passage. " Both 
thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the 
heathen (the nations) that are round about you. Of them shall ye buy 
bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers 
that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy," &,c. The design 
of this passage is manifest from its structure. It was to point out the 
•cZas5 of persons from which they were to get their supply of servants, 



57 

and the tvay in which they were to get them. That "forever" refers 
to the permanent relations of a community, rather than to the services of 
individuals., is a fair inference from the form of the expression, " They 
shall be your possession. Ye shall take tliem as an inheritance for yom- 
children to inherit them for a possession." To say nothing of the un- 
certainty of these individuals surviving those after whom they are to 
live, the language used, applies more naturally to a body of people, than 
to individual servants. 

But suppose it otherwise ; still jjsrpelual service could not be argued 
from the term forever. The ninth and tenth verses of the same chap- 
ter, limit it absolutely by the jubilee. " Then shall thou cause the trum- 
pet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month : in the 
day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all J/owr 
land.'' " And ye shall hal I oio the fiftieth year, and piroclaim liberty 
throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.''' 

It may be objected that " inhabitants" here means Israel Hi sh inhabit- 
ants alone. The command is, " Proclaim liberty throughout all the 
land unto all the inhabitants thereof." Besides, in the sixth verse, 
there is an enumeration of the different classes of the inhabitants, in 
which servants and strangers are included. "And the Sabbath of the 
land shall be meet for you — [For whom ? For you Israelites only ?] 
—J or thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired 
servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee." 

Further, in all the regulations of the jubilee, and the sabbatical year, 
the strangers are included, in the precepts, prohibitions, and promised 
blessings. Again : the year of jubilee was ushered in, by the day of 
atonement. What was the design of these institutions ? The day of 
atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of jubilee, 
the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee 
to Jews only ? Were they the types of sins remitted, and of salvation, 
proclaimed to the nation of^ Israel aloiie ? Is there no redemption for 
us Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and 
impiety? Did that old partition wail survive the shock, that madeearth 
quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple 
vail ? And did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition 
from its frowning battlements on all w ithout ? No ! The God of our 
salvation lives. " Good tidings of great joy shall be to all people." 
One shout shall swell from all the ransomed, " Thou hast redeemed us 
unto God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, 
and nation." To deny that the blessuigs of the jubilee extended to the 



58 

servants from the Gentiles, makes Christianity Judaism. It not only 
eclipses the glory of the Gospel, but strikes out the sun. The refusal to 
release servants at the sound of the jubilee trumpet, falsified and disan- 
nulled a grand leading type of the atonement, and thus libelled the doc- 
trine of Christ's redemption. 

Finally, even li forever did refer to the length oiindividual service, 
we have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee. The 
same word is used to define the length of lime for which those Jewish 
servants were held, who refused to go out in the seventh year. And all 
admit that their term of service did not go beyond the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 
2—6 ; Deut. xv. 12—17. 

The 23d verse of the same chapter is quoted to prove that "forever^'' 
in the 46th verse, extends beyond the jubilee. " The land shall not be 
sold FOREVER, jTor the land is mine'^ — as it would hardly be used in dif- 
ferent senses in the same general connection. In reply, we repeat that 
ybreuer respects the duration of the ^e/iera/arrawgemew^, and not that 
of individual service. Consequently, it is not affected by the jubilee ; so 
the objection does not touch the argument. But it may not be amiss 
to show that it is equally harmless against any other argument drawn 
from the use of forever in the ^^eth verse, — for the word there used, is 
Olam, meaning throughout the period, whatever that may be. Whereas 
in the 23d verse, it is Tsemithuth, meaning cutting off, or to he cut 
off- 

III. " Inheritance and possession. " — " Ye shall take them as an 
INHERIT ANCE for your children after you to inherit them for a possession f 
This refers to the nations, and not to the individual servants, procured 
from these nations. We have already shown, that servants could not 
bo held as a ^jropfr/?/-possession, and inheritance ; that they became 
servants of their oion accord, and were paid wages ; that they were re- 
leased by law from their regular labor nearly half the days in each 
year, and thoroughly instructed ; that the servants were protected in all 
their personal, social, and religious rights, equally with their masters, 
&c. Now, truly, all remaining, after these ample reservations, would 
be small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre. What a 
profitable " possession" and "inheritance!" What if our American 
slaves were all placed mjust such a condition ! Alas, for that soft, me- 
lodious circumlocution, " Our rECULiAR species of property !" Truly, 
emphasis is cadence, and euphony and irony have met together ! 

What eager snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective 
.of connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations 0*" 



59 

meaning by other passages — and all to eke out such a sense as accords 
with existing usages and sanctifies them, thus making God pander for 
their lusts. Little nnatter whether the meaning of the word be primary 
or secondary, literal or figurative, provided it sustains their practices. 

But let us inquire whether the words rendered " inherit" and "inher- 
itance," when used in the Old Testament, necessarily point out the 
things inherited and possessed as articles of projperly. Nahald^nd Na. 
hala — inherit and inheritance. See 2 Chronicles x. 16. " The people 
answered the king and said. What portion have we in David, and we 
have none inheritance in the son of Jesse." Did they mean gravely tp 
disclaim the holding of their king as an article of properly 1 Psalms 
cxxvii. 3 — " Lo, children are an heritage (inheritance) of the Lord." 
Exodus xxxiv. 9 — " Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for 
thine inheritance." When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them 
as his children, does he make them articles of property ? Are forgive- 
ness, and chattel-making, synonymes? Psalms cxix. Ill — " Thy tes- 
timonies have I taken as a heritage (inheritance) forever." Ezekiel 
xliv. 27, 28 — " And in the day that he goeth into die sanctuary, unto 
the inner court to minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin-offering, 
saiththe Lord God. And it shall be unto them for an inheritance ; / 
am \he\v inheritance." Psalms ii. 8 — "Ask of me, and I will give thee the 
heathen for thine inheritance.^'' Psalms xciv. 14 — "For the Lord will 
not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance." See 
also Deuteronomy iv. 20; Joshua xiii. 33; Chronicles x. 16; Psalms 
Ixxxii. 8, and Ixxviii. 62, 71 ; Proverbs xiv 8. 

The question whether the servants were a vrovzvlty-" possession" 
has been already discussed — (See p. 36) — we need add in this place 
but a word. Ahusa rendered ^'■possession." Genesis xlii. 11 — "And 
Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession 
ill the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as 
Pharaoh had commanded." 

In what sense was the land of Goshen the possession of the Israelites ? 
Answer, In the sense of, having it to live in. In what sense were the 
Israelites to jwssess these nations, and take them as an inheritance for 
their children ? We answer. They possessed them as a permanent 
source of supply for domestic or household servants. And this relation 
to these nations was to go down to posterity as a standing regulation — a 
national usage respecting them, having the certainty and regularity of a 
descent by inheritance. The sense of the whole regulation may be 
given thus : " Thy permanent domestics, both male and female, which 

8 



eo 

thou shah have, sliall he of the nations that are round ahout you, oC them 
shall ye get male and female domestics." " Moreover of the children of 
the fol-ei2;ners that do sojourn amonir you. o^ them shall ye get, and of 
their familte-s that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they 
shall be your permanent resource," (for household servants.) "And ye 
shall take them as a 'perjietual provision for your children after you, to 
hold as a constant source of supplij. Always of them shall ye serve 
yourselves." 

Objection IV. " If thy brother thai choelleth ly thee he waxen poor, 
and le sold unto thee, thou shall not compel him to serve as a bond-ser- 
vant, lut as (in BiMZB-SERY ANT, and as a sojourner shall he le with 
thee, and shall serve thee tinto the year of jubilee." Lev. xxv. 39, 40. 

From the fact that only one class of the servants is called hired, it is 
sagely inferred that servants of the other class were not paid for their 
labor. That is, that while God thundered anathemas against those who 
" used their neighbor's service without ivages," he granted a special 
indulgence to his chosen people to seize persons, force them to work, 
and rob them of earnings, provided always, in selecting their victims, 
they spared " the gentlemen of property and standing," and pounced 
only upon the strangers and the common people. The inference that 
" hired'' is synoniinous with paid, and that those servants not called 
"hired" were not paid for their labor, \s^ mere assumption. 

The meaning of the English verb to hire, is, as every one knows, to 
procure for a temporary use at a certain price — to engage a person to 
temporary service for wages. That is also the meaning of the Hebrew 
word " Saukar." Temporary service, and generally for a specific ob- 
ject, is inseparable from its meaning. It is never used when the pro- 
curement 0^ permanent service, for a long period, is spoken of. Now, 
we ask, would pcr«M?ieni servants, those who constituted an integral 
and stationary part of the family, have been de.signated by ihe same 
term that marks temporary servants ? The everj'-day distinctions made 
on this subject, are as familiar as table-talk. In many families, the do- 
mestics perform only such labor, as every day brings along with it — the 
regular work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the washing of a 
family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose. In such 
families, the familiar distinction between the two classes, is "servants," 
or " domestics," and " hi^-ed help," {not paid help.) Both classes are 
paid. One is permanent, the other occasional and temporary, and 
therefore in this case called '■'■hired." To suppose a servant robbed 
of his earnings, because when spoken of, he is not called a hired ser- 



61 

vant, is profoLind induction ! If I employ a man at twelve dollars a 
montii to work my farm, he is my "hired'" man, but if, instead of giving 
liim so much a month, I give him such a portion of the crop, or in other 
words, if he works my farm " on shares," he is no longer my hired 
man. Every farmer knows that that designation is not applied to him. 
Yet he works the same farm, in tlie same way, at the same times, and 
with the same teams and tools ; and does the same amount of work in 
the year, and perhaps clears twenty dollars a month, instead of the 
twelve, paid him while he was my hired laborer. Now, as the technic 
" hired" is no longer used to designate him, and as he still labors on my 
farm, suppose my neighbors gather in conclave, and from such ample 
premises sagely infer, that since he is no longer my " hired" laborer, I 
rob him of his earnings, and with all the gravity of owls, they record 
their decision, and adjourn to hoot it abroad. My neighbors are deep 
divers ! — like some theological professors, they not only go to the bot- 
tom, but come up covered with the tokens. 

A variety of particulars are recorded in the Bible, distinguishing /uVecJ 
from bought servants. (1.) Hired servants were paid daily at the close 
of their work. Lev. xix 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Job. vii. 2 ; Matt. xx. 
8. " Bought'" servants were paid in advance, (a reason for their being 
called, bought,) and those that went out at the seventh year received a 
gratuity at the close of their period of service. Deut. xv. 12 — 13. (2.) 
The hired servant was paid in money, the bought servant received his 
gratuity, oX least, in grain, cattle, and the product of the vmtage. Deut. 
xiv. 17. (3.) The hired servant lived by himself, in his own family^, 
The bought servant was a part of his master's family. (4.) The hired 
servant supported his family out of his wages ; the bought servant and 
his fomily, were supported by the master besides his wages. 

A careful investigation of the condition of " hired" and of '' bought'^ 
servants, shows that the latter were, as a class, superior to the former-^ 
were more trust worthy, had greater privileges, and occupied in every 
respect {other things being equal) a higher station in society. (1.) 
They were intimately incorporated with the family of the master. They 
were guests at family festivals, anti social solemnities, from which hired 
servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10; Exod. xii. 43, 45. (2.) Their 
interests icere far more identified with the general interests of their mas- 
ters^ family. Bought servants were often {ictually, or prospectively, 
heirs of their master's estate. Witness the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, of 
the sons of Bilhah, and Zilpah, and others. When there were no sons 
to inherit the estate, or when, by unwofthiness, they had forfeited their 



62 

lltle, bought servants were made heirs. Proverbs xvii. 2. We find 
traces of this usage in the New Testament. "But when the husband- 
men saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, this is the heir, 
come let us kill him, that the inheritance may he ours.'''' Luke xx. 14 ; 
also Mark xii. 7. In no instance on Bible record, does a hired servant 
inherit his master's estate. (3.) Marriages took flace between servants 
and their master\s daughters. " Now Sheshah had no sons, but daugh. 
ters : and Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. 
And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife. 1 Chrbrl. 
ii. 34, 35. There is no instance (»f a hired servant forming such 
an alliance. 

(4.) Bought servants and their descendants &eem to have heen regard- 
ed with the same affection and res'pect as the other memhers of the fami- 
ly.* The treatment of Eliezer, and the other servants in the family of 
Abraham, Gen. chap. 25 — the intercourse between Gideon and his ser- 
vant Phurah, Judges vii. 10, 11. and Saul and his servant, in their ih- 
terview with Samuel, 1 Sam. ix. 5, 22 ; and Jonathan and his servant, 
1 Sam. xiv. 1 — 14, and Elisha and his servant Gehazi, are illustrations. 
No such tie seems to have existed between hired servants and their mas- 
ters. Their untrustvvorthiness seems to have been proverbial. See 
John ix. 12, 13. 

None but the lowest class seem to have engaged as hired servants. 
No instance occurs in which they are assigned to business demanding 
much knowledge or skill. Various passages show the low repute and 
trifling character of the class from which they were hired. Judges ix. 
4 ; 1 Sam. ii. 5. 

The superior condition and privileges of bought servants, are mani- 
fested in the high trusts confided to them, and in the dignity and author- 
ity with which they were clothed in their master's household. But in no 
instance is a hired servant thus distinguished. In some cases, the 
bo7ighi servant is manifestly the master's representative in the family— 
with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even negotiating mar- 
riage for them. Abraham besought Eliei;er his servant, to take "a 
solemn oath, that he would not take a wife for Isaac of the daugh- 
ters of the Canaanites, but from Abraham's kindred. The ser- 

* The following is Maimonides' testimony to the condition of the purcliased seWant. " For 
the purchased servant who is an Israelite, or proi-elyte, shall fare as his master. The mas- 
ter shall not eat fine bread, and his servant bread of brau. Nor yet drink old wine, and give 
'his servant new ; nor s.eep on soft pillows, and bedding, and his servant on straw. I say unto 
you, that he that gets u purchased servant does well to make him as his friend, or he will prove 
h'o hi? employer as if he got himself a master."— Maimonides, in Mishna Kiddushim. Chap- 
ter 1st, Sec. 2. 



63 

rant went accordingly, and /tm??//" selected the individual. Servants 
also exercised discretionary power in the management of their master's 
estate, "And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his master, 
for all the goods of his master were under his hand." Gen. xxiv. 10. The 
reason assigned for taking them, is not that such was Abraham's direc- 
tion, but that the servant had discretionary control. Servants had also 
discretionary power in the disposal of property. See Gen. xxiv. 22, 
23,53. The condition of Zibain the house of Mephiboseth, is a case 
in point. So is Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to 
be found in the New Testament, Math. xxiv. 45 ; Luke xii. 42, 44. 
So in the parable of the talents ; the master seems to have set up each 
of his servants in trade with considerable capital. One of them could 
not have had less than eight thousand dollars. The parable of the un- 
just steward is another illustration. Luke xvi. 4, 8. He evidently was 
entrusted with large discretionary jiower, was " accused of wasting his 
master's goods." and manifestly regulated with his master's debtors, the 
terms of settlement. Such trusts were never reposed in hired servants. 
The inferior condition ofhired servants, is illustrated in the parable 
of the prodigal son. When the prodigal, perishing with hunger among 
the swine and husks, came to himself, his proud heart broke ; " I will 
arise," he cried, " and go to my father.'" And then to assure his father 
of the depth of his humility, resolved to add imploringly, " Make me as 
one of thy hired servants." It need not be remarked, that i( hired ser- 
vants were the superior class ; to apply for the situation, and press the 
suit, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that seeks the dust with 
hidden face, and cries " unclean." L'nhumbled nature climbs ; or if it 
falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility sinks of its own weight, 
and m the lowest deep, digs lower. The design of the parable was to 
illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he beholds afar off, the 
returning sinner " seeking an injured father's face." who runs to clasp 
and bless him with an unchiding welcome ; and on the other, the contri- 
tion of the penitent, turning homeward with tears, from his wan- 
derings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert, he sobs aloud, 
" The lowest place, the lowest place, I can abide no other." Or in those 
inimitable words, " Father, 1 have sinned against Heaven, and in thy 
sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of 
thy HIRED servants." The supposition that hired servants were the 
highest class, takes from the parable an element of winning beauty and 
pathos. It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that one 
"class 6f servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other 



64 

mombers of the family. (Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. 
iv. 1, " Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, dif- 
FERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he bc lord of all.") If ihis 
were the hired class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. 
Would our Lord have put such language, into the lips of one held up 
by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its lowliness, its 
conscious destitution of all merit, and deep sense of all ill desert? If 
this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while pride takes 
lessons, and blunders in apeing it. 

Here let it be observed, that both Israelites and Strangers, belonged 
indiscriminately to each class of the servants, the bought and the hired. 
That those in the former class, whether Jews or Strangers, were in 
higher estimation, and rose to honors and authority in the family circle, 
which were not conferred on /i^'rerf servants, has been already shown. It 
should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges, merely 
political and national, the hired servants from the Israelites, were more 
favored than either the hired, or the bought servants from the Strangers. 
No one from the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was 
eligible to the highest office, nor could he own the soil. This lastdisa- 
bility seems to have been one reason for the different periods of service 
required of the two classes of bought servants — the Israelites and the 
Strangers. The Isi'aelite was to serve six years — the Stranger until 
the jubilee.* 

As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor even houses, except with- 
in walled towns, most of them would choose to attacli themselves per- 
manently to Israelitish families. Those Strai>ger3 who were wealthy, 
or skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants themselves, 
would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for the 
Strangers to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than per- 
sons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers 
would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants. See Levit. 
XXV. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, 
the Jewish polity furnished a strong motive to them, to become servants, 
thus incorporating themselves with the nation, and procuring those 
social and religious privileges already enumerated, and for their chil- 
dren in the second generation, a permanent inheritance. (This last 
was a regulation of later date. Ezekiel xlvii. 21 — 23.) Indeed, the 

* Both classes may witli propriety be called permanent servants ; even tlie bought Israelite, 
wken his six-years' service is contrasted with the brief term of the hired servant. 



65 

structure of the whole Mosaic polity, v/as ,i virtual bounty'ofFered to 
tliose who would become permanent servants, and merge in the Jew- 
ish system their distinct nationality. None but the monied aristocracy 
among them, would be likely to decline such ofFers. 

For various reasons, this class, (the servants bought from the Stran- 
gers,) would prefer a long service. They would thus more etFectually 
become absorbed into the national circulation, and identify their in- 
teresls with those in whose gift were all things desirable for them- 
selves, and brighter prospects for their children. On the other hand, 
the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sort 
of sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance, was, with every 
Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 
1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the possession of one's inheritance, 
q/)!er the division of the paternal domain, or to be restraiued from its 
control, after having acceded to it, was a burden gi-ievous to be borne* 
To mitigate, as much as possible, such a calamity, the law, instead of 
requiring the Israelite to continue a servant until the jubilee, released 
him at the end of six years,* as, during that time — ;f, of the first class 
—the partition of the patrimonial land might have taken place ; or, if of 
the second, enough money might have been earned to disencumber 
liis estate, and thus he might assume his station as a lord of the soil. If 
these contingencies had not occurred, then, at the end of another six 
years, the opportunity was again offered, and in the same manner until 
the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite, to discontinue 
his service as soon as the exigency had passoil, which induced him to 
become a servant, every consideration impelled the Stravger Xoprohiia 
his term of service ; and the same kindness which dictated the law of 
six years' service for the Israelite, assigned, as the general rule, a much 
longer period to the Gentile servant, who, instead of beirg tempted to a 
brief service, had every inducement to protract the term. 

It is important to a clear understanding of the whole subject, to keep 
in mind, that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a tempora- 
ry expedient to relieve themselics from embarrassment, and ceased ta 

* Another reas n for protracling the service unil the snventh year, seems to have been, 
its coincidence with other arrangements, and provisions, inseparable from the Jewish econo- 
my. Thit pi riod, was a favorite one in the Mosaic system. Its pecuniary responsibilities, 
sociil relations, and general internal structure, if not gradaa^ed upon a septennial scale, were 
variously modified by tiie lapse oTthat period. Anotlier reason doubtless was, that as those 
Israelites who became servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, except as a last 
resort, whenotherexpedients to recruit their finances had failed— (See Lev. xxv. 35)— their 
becoming servants proclaimedsuch a state of their affaire, as demanded the labor of a eoiirse of 
years fully to reinstato tliem. 



66 

be such when tliat object wns effected. The poverty that forced them 
to it was a calamity/and their service was either a means of relief, or a 
measure of prevention. It was not pursued a.s a. per7nanenl busmess, 
but resorted toon emergencies — a sort of episode in the main scope of 
their lives. Whereas with the Strangers, it was a permanent employ- 
ment, pursued not merely as a means of bettering their own condition, 
and prospectively that of their posterity, but also, as an end for its 
own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not 
otherwise attainable. 

We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the hea- 
then, are called by way of distinction, the servants, (not bondmen, as 
our translators have it.) (1.) They followed it as a permanent busi- 
ness. (2.) Their term of se'rvice was much longer than that of the other 
class. (3.) As a class, they doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israel- 
itish servants. (4.) All the Strangers that dwelt in the land, were tribu- 
taries to the Israelites — required to pay an annual tribute to the govern- 
ment, either in money, or in public service, which was called a tribute 
of bond-service ;" in other words, all the Strangers were national ser. 
vants, to the Israelites, and the same Hebrew word which is used to de- 
signate individual servants, equally designates national servants or tri- 
butaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14. 2 Chron. viii. 7 — 9. Deut. xx. 11. 
2 Sam. X. 19. 1 Kings ix. 21, 22. 1 Kings iv. 21. Gen. xxvii. 29. 
The same word is applied to the Israelites, when they paid tribute to 
other nations. See 2 Kings xvii. 3. Judges iii. 8, 14. Gen. xlix. 15. 
Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought servants, 
claims notice. It was in the kinds of service assigned to each class. 
The servants from the Strangers, were properly the domestics, or house- 
hold servants, employed in all family work, in offices of personal attend, 
ance, and in such mechanical labor, as was constantly required in every 
family, by increasing wanls, and needed repairs. On the other hand, 
the Jewish bought servants seem to have been almost exclusively agri. 
cultural. Besides being better fitted for this by previous habits — agri- 
culture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites as 
the most honorable of all occupations ; kings engaged in them. After 
Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of 
him is, " And behold Saul came ofter the herd out of the fcld." — 1 
Sam, xi. 7. 

Elisha "was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen" when Elijah threw 
his mantle upon him. 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah " loved hus- 
bandry." 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. Gideon, the deliverer of Israel, was 



07 

." threshing wheat by the wine press" when called to lead the hosi 
against the Midianites. Judges vi. 11. The superior honorableness of 
agriculture, is shown by the fact, that it was protected and supported hy 
ihefundamenlallaw of the theocracy — God thus indicating it as the 
chief prop of the government, and putting upon it peculiar honor. An 
inheritance of land seems to have filled out an Israelite's idea of worldly 
furnishment. They were like permanent fixtures on their soil, so did they 
chng to it. To be agriculturalists on their own inheritances, was, in 
their notions, the basis of family consequence, and the grand claim to 
honorable estimation. Agriculture being pre-eminently a Jewish em- 
ployment, to assign a native Israelite to o^Aer employments as SLbusiness, 
was to break up his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and 
put him to a kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he 
deemed degrading. In short, it was, in the earlier ages of the Mosaic 
system, practically to unjew him, a hardship and rigor grievous to be 
borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of 
Abraham and the Strangers — a distinction vital to the system, and glo- 
ried in by every Jew. 

To guard this and another fundamental distinction, God instituted the 
regulation contained in Leviticus xxv. 39, which stands at the head of 
this branch of our inquiry, " If thy brother that dwelkth by thee be 
waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shall not compel him to serve as a 
bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not put him to servants^ 
work — to the business, and into the condition of domestics. 

In the Persian version it is translated thus, " Thou shalt not assign 
to him the work of servitude," (or mxnial labor.) In the Septuagint 
thus, " He shall not serve thee with the service of a domestic or house- 
hold servant." In the Syriac thus, " Thou shalt not employ him after 
the manner of servants." In the Samaritan thus, " Thou shalt not re- 
quire him to serve in the service of a servant." In the Targum of On- 
kelos thus, " He shall not serve thee with the service of a household 
servant." In the Targum of Jonathan thus, "Thou shalt not cause 
him to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants.*" In 
fine, " thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," means 

* Jarchi's comment on " Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant" is " the He 
brew servant is not to be requirea to do any thing which is accounted degrading— such as all 
offices of personil attendance, as loosing his master's shoe latchet, bringing him water tc 
wash his feet and hands, waiting on liim at table, dressing him, carrying things to and from the 
bath. The Hebrew servant is to work with his master as a son or brother, in the business of 

>is farm, or other labor, until his legal release." 

9 



68 

tliou shall not assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same siV''- 
vices, with permanent domestics. 

We pass to the remainder ofthe regulation in the 40th verse : — 
"But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be ivith theeJ'^ 
Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their masters ; 
they still retained their own family organization, without the surrender 
of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority ; and this, even though 
they resided under the same roof with their master. While bought- 
servants were associated with their master's families at meals, at the 
Passover, and at other family festivals, hired servants and sojourners 
were not. Exodus xii. 44, 45 ; Lev. xxii. 10, 11. Not being merged 
in the family of his master, the hired servant was not subject to his au- 
thority, (except in directions about his labor) in any such sense as the 
master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence the only form of 
oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures as practicable to 
masters, is that of keeping back their longes. 

To have taken away these privileges in the case stated in the passage 
under consideration, would have been preeminent rigor ; for the case 
described, is not that of a 'servant born in the house of a master, nor 
tliat of a minor, whose unexpired minority had been sold by the father, 
neither was it the case of an Israelite, who though of age, had not yet 
acceded to his inheritance ; nor, finally, was it that of one who had re-, 
ceived the assignment of his inheritance, but was, as a servant, working 
ofFfrom it an incumbrance, before entering upon its possession and con- 
trol.* But it was that oUhe head of a family, who had lived independ- 
ently on his own inheritance, and long known better days, now reduced 
to poverty, forced to relinquish the loved inheritance of his fathers, with 
the competence and respectful consideration its possession secured to 
him, and to be indebted to a neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and em- 
ployment, both for himself and his family. Surely so sad a reverse, 
might well claim sympathy ; but there remaineth to him one consola- 
tion, and it cheers him in the house of his pilgrimage. He is an Isra- 
elite — Abraham is his father, and now in his calamity he clings closer 
than ever, to the distinction conferred by the immunities of his birth- 
right. To rob him of this, were " the unkindest cut of all." To have 
assigned him to m grade of service filled only by those whose permanent 
business was serving, would have been to rule over him iritli peculiar 
rigor. 

f- Thpse two latter classes are evidcutlj referred to inExed. x.\i. 1-0, ajid Deut. xv. 12. 



69 

Finally, the former part of the regulation, " Thou shalt not compel 
jilm to serve as a bond-servant," or more hterally, thou shalt not serve, 
thyself with him, with the service of a servant, guaranties his political 
privileges, and secures to him a kind and grade of service, comporting 
with his character and relations as a son of Israel. And the remainder 
of the verse, " But as a hired servant, and as a sojourner shall he be 
with thee," continues and secures to him his separate family organiza- 
tion, the respect and authority due to his head, and the general conside- 
ration in society resulting from such a station. Though this individual 
was a Jewisl:^ bought servant, the case is peculiar, and forms an ex*" 
ception to the general class of Jewish bought servants. Being al- 
ready in possession of his inheritance, and the head of a household, the 
law so arranged his relations, as a servant, as to alleviate as much as 
possible the calamity which had reduced him from independence and au- 
thority, to penury and subjection. 

Having gone so much into detail on this point, comment on the corn- 
mand which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, would be su- 
perfluous. " Thou shall not rule over him with rigor, hut shall fear thy 
God.'' As if it had been said, "In your administration you shall not 
disregard those dilTerences in previous habits, station, authority, and na- 
tional and political privileges, upon which this regulation is based ; for 
to exercise authority over this class of servants, irrespective of these 
distinctions, and annihilating them, is to ''rule ivith rigor.'' The same 
command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to the dis- 
tinction between the servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction, 
and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, so vital to 
•^n Israelite as to make the violation of them, rigorous in the extreme ; 
while to the servants from the Strangers, whose previous habits and as- 
sociations differed so widely from those of the Israelite, these same 
things would be deemed slight disabilities. 

It may be remarked here, that the political and other disabilities of 
the Strangers, which were the distinctions growing out of a difterent 
national descent, and important to the preservation of national charac- 
teristics, and to the purity of national worship, do not seem to have ef- 
fected at all the social estimation, in which this class of servants was 
held. They were regarded according to their character and worth as 
^verso7is, irrespective of their foreign origin, employments, and political 
condition. 

The common construction put upon the expression, " rule toith rigor, ' 
•atid an inference drawn from it, have an air so oracular, as quite to 



70 

overcharge risibies of ordinary calibre, if such an effect were not fore- 
stalled by its impiety. It is interpreted to mean, " you shall not make 
him an article of property, you shall not force him to work, and rob him 
of his earnings, you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him of le- 
gal protection." So much for the interpretation. The inference is 
like unto it, viz. Since the command forbade such outrages upon the 
Israelites, it permitted and commissioned the infliction of them upon the 
Strangers. Such impious and shallow smattering, captivates two 
classes of minds, the one by its flippancy, the other by its blasphemy, 
and both, by the strong scent of its unbridled license. What boois it to 
reason against such rampant affinities ! 

In Exodus, chap. i. 13, 14, it is said that the Egyptians "made 
the children of Israel to serve with rigor," "and all their s»3n'ice wherein 
they made them serve, was with rigor." The rigor here spoken of, is 
affirmed of the amount of labor extorted from them, and the mode of the 
exaction. This form of expression, " serve with rigor," is never ap- 
plied to the service of servants either under the Patriarchal, or the Mo- 
saic systems. Nor is any other form of expression ever used, either 
equivalent to it, or at all similar. The phrase, "thou shalt not rulk 
over him with rigor," used in Leviticus xxv. 43, 46, does not prohibit 
unreasonable exactions of labor, nor inflictions of personal cruelly. 
Such were j^rovided against otherwise. But it forbids, confounding 
the distinctions between a Jew and a Stranger, by assigning the former 
to the same grade of service, for the same term of time, and under the 
same national and political disabilities as the latter. 

We are now prepared to survey ;it a glance, the general condition of 
the different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each 
class. I. In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes of 
servants were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by law 
in their persons, character, property and social relations. All were 
voluntary, all were compensated for their labor. All were released from 
their regular labor nearly one half of the days in each year, all were 
furnished with stated instruction ; none in either class were in any sense 
articles o^ propeiiy, all were regarded as men, with the rights, interests, 
hopes, and destinies of men. In these respects the circumstances of «/^ 
classes of servants among the Israelites, were not only similar but iden- 
'tical, and so far forth, they formed but one class. 

II. Different classes of servants. 

1,. Hired Servants. — Tliis class consisted both of Israelites and 
"i^tran^ers. Their enKployments were different. ThQ Israelite, was a!A 



71 

agricultural servant. Tlie Stranger was a domestic and personal ser- 
vant, and in some instances mechanical ; both were occasional, pro- 
cured temporally to serve an emergency. Both hved in their own fami- 
lies, their wages were money, and they were paid when their work was 
done. As a class of servants, the hired were less loved, trusted, hon- 
ored and promoted than any other. 

2. Bought Servants, [including those '■'horn in the house.") — This 
class also, was composed both of Israelites and Strangers, the same ge- 
neral difference obtaining in their kinds of employment as was noticed 
before. Both were paid in advance,* and neither was temporary. 

The IsraeUtish servant, in most instances, was released after six years. 
{The freeholder continued until the jubilee.) The Stranger, was aper- 
manent servant, continuing until the jubilee. Besides these disiinctions 
between Jewish and Gentile bought servants, a marked distinction ob- 
tained between different classes ol Jewish bought servants. Ordinarily, 
during their term of service, they were merged in their master's family, 
and, like the wife and children of the master, subject to his autiiority ; 
(and of course, like them, protected by law from its abuse.) But one 
class of the Jewish bought servants was a marked exception. Tlie 
freeholder, obliged by poverty to leave his possession, and sell himself 
as a servant, did not thereby affect his family relations, or authority, 
nor subject himselfas an inferior to the control of his master, though de- 
pendent upon him for employment. In this respect, his condition dif- 
fered from that of the main body of Jewish bought servants, which 
seems to have consisted of those, who had not yet come into possession 
of their inheritance, or of those who were dislodging from it an incum- 
brance. 

Having dwelt so much at length on this part of the subject, the reader's 
patience may well be spared further details. We close it with a sugges- 
tion or two, which may serve as a solvent of .some minor difficulties, if 
such remain. 

* The payment in advance, doubtless lessened considerably the price of tlie purchase ; the 
servant thus having the use of the money from the beginning, and the master assuming all the 
risks of life, and health for labor ; at the expiration of the six years' contract, the master hav- 
ing experienced no loss from the risk iacurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to re- 
lease the servant with a liberal gratuity. The reason assigned for tlds is, "he hath beeii 
worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving thee six years," as if it had been said ; he has 
now served out his lime, and as you have experienced no loss from the riska of life, and ability 
to labor which you incurred in the purchase, and which lessened the price, and as, by being 
your permanent servant for six years, he has saved you all the time and trouble of looking up 
and hiring laborers on emergencies, therefore, "thou shalt furnish him Iibeially," &c. 



72 

I. U should be kept in mind, that Z'o/A classes of servants, the Israel- 
ite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed equal natural and religious rights, 
but all the civil and p oUtical privileges enjoyed by those of their own peo- 
pie, who were not servants. If Israelites, all rights belonging to Israelites 
Were theirs. If from the Strangers, the same political privileges enjoye(i 
by those wealthy Strangers, wlio bought and held Israelitish servants, 
^ere theirs. They also shared in common loiih thou, the political disa- 
bilities which appertahied to all Strangers, whether the servants of Jew- 
ish masters, or the masters of Jewish servants. 

II. The disabilities of the servants from the Strangers, were exclu- 
^ive\y political and national. 

1. They, in common with all Strangers, could not oion the soil. 

2. They were ineligihle to civil offices. 

3. They were assigned to emj)loyments less honorable than those in 
which Israelitish servants engaged ; agriculture being regarded as funda- 
mental to the prosperity and even to the existence of the state, other em- 
ployments were in far less repute, and deemed unjcwish. 

Finally, the condition of the Strangers, whether servants or masters, 
was, as it respected political privileges, much like that of unnaturalized 
foreigners in the United States ; no matter how great their wealth or in- 
telligence, or moral principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither 
go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a 
native American, who has always enjoyed these privileges, be suddenly 
bereft of them, and loaded with the disabilities of an alien, and. what to 
the foreigner would be a light matter, to him, would be the severity of 
rigor. 

The recent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is a still 
better illustration of the political condition of the Strangers in Israel. 
Rothschild, the late English banker, though the richest private citizen in 
the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued 
for the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the govern, 
ment, inferior to the veriest scavenger among them. Suppose an En- 
glishman, of the Established Church, were by law deprived of power to 
own the soil, made ineligible to office, and deprived unconditionally of 
the electoral franchise, would Englishmen think it a misapplication of 
language, if it were said, " The government rules over that man with 
rigor ?" And yet his life, limbs, property, reputation, conscience, all his 
social relations, the disposal of his time, the right of locomotion at plea- 
sure, and of natural liberty in all respects, are just as much protected by 
'law as 'the Lord Chancellor's. The same was true of all " the stran- 



721 

gers within the gates" among the Israehtes : Whether these Strangers 
were the servants of IsraeUtish masters, or the masters of Israelitish ser- 
vants, whether sojourners., or bought servants, or born in the house, or 
hired, or neither — all icere j)rotecAed equally with the descendants of 
Abraham. 

Finally — As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, made 
up of innumerable fractional ones, each rife with meaning in doctrine 
and dut}'' ; the practical power of the whole, depended upon the exact 
observance of those distinctions and relations which constituted its sig- 
nificancy. Hence, the care everywhere shown to preserve inviolate the 
distinction between a descendant of Abraham and a Stranger, even when 
the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory ordinances, 
entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the Israelites 
by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Exodus xxi. 2 — 6, is 
an illustration, " If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years shall he 
serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he 
came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, 
then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him 
a wife, and she have borne him sons or datighters ; the wife and her 
children shall be her master^s, and he shall go out by hi?nself And 
if the servant should plainly say, 1 love my master, my wife, and my 
children, I will not go out free : then his master shall bring him unto 
the judges ; he shall also bring him to the door, or unlo the door-post; 
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shal^ 
serve hirnforever." In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term 
expired in six years, married one of his master's pei-manent female do., 
mestics ; but the fact of her marriage, did not release her master frorn 
his part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor absolve him 
from his legal obligation to support and educate her children. Nor could 
it do away that distinction, which marked her national descent by a spe- 
cific grade and term of service. Her marriage did not impair her obli- 
gation to fulfil her part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent 
domestic grew out of a distinction guarded with great care throughout 
the Mosaic system. To permit this to be rendered void, would have 
been to divide the system against itself. This God would not tolerate. 
Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the master, to throw off the re- 
sponsibility of instructing her children, nor the care and expense of their 
helpless infancy and rearing. He was bound to support and educate 
them, and all her children born afterwards during her term of service. 
The whole arrangement beautifullv illustra'.es that wise and tender re- 



74 

gard for the interests of all the parties concerned, which arrays the Mo. 
saic system in robes of glory, and causes it to shine as the sun in the 
kingdom of our Father. By this law, the children had secured to them 
a mother's tender care. If the husband loved his wife and children, he 
could compel his master to keep him, whether he had any occasion for 
his services or not, and with such remuneration as was provided by the 
statute. If he did not love them, to be rid of him was a blessing ; and in 
that case, the regulation would prove an act for the relief of an afflicted 
family. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the release of the ser- 
vant from his service in the seventh year, either absolved him from the 
obligations of marriage, or shut him out from the society of his family. 
He could doubtless procure a service at no great distance from them, 
and might often do it, to get higher wages, or a kind of employment bet- 
ter suited to his taste and skill, or because his master might not have 
sufficient work to occupy him. Whether he lived near his family, or 
at a considerable distance, the great number of days on which the law 
released servants from regular labor, would enable him to spend much 
more time with them than can be spent by most of the agents of our be- 
nevolent societies with their families, or by many merchants, editors, 
artists, &c., whose daily business is in New York, while their families 
reside from ten to one hundred miles in the country. 

We conclude this Inquiry by touching briefly upon an objection, 
which, thougli not formally stated, has been already set aside by the 
whole tenor of the foregoing argument. It is this, — 

" The slax'ery of the CanaanUes by the Israelites, loas appointed by 
God as a commutation of the punishnent of death denounced against 
them for their sins" — If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons 
to death, and at the same time to perpetual slavery, did not sufficiently 
laut'h in its own face, it would be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, 
to make up the deficiency by a general contribution. For, be it remem- 
bered, the Mosaic law was given, while Israel was in the toilderness, and 
only one statute was ever given respecting the disposition to be made of 
the inhabitants of the land. If the sentence of death was first pronoun- 
ced against them, and afterwards commuted, when ? where? by whom ? 
and in what terms was the commutation ? And where is it recorded ? 
Grant, for argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were sentenced to 
unconditional extermination ; as there was no reversal of the sentence, 
how can a right to enslave them, be drawn from such premises? The 
bunishment of death is one of the highest recognitions of man's moral 
nature possible. It proclaims him man — intelligent accountable, guilty 



75 

fnan, deserving death for having done his utmost to cheapen human life^ 
and make it worthless, when the proof of its priceless value, lives in his 
own nature. But to make him a slave, cheapens to nothing universal 
human nature, and instead of liealing a wound, gives a death stab. 
What ! repair an injury done to rational being in the robbery of one of 
its rights, not merely by robbing it of all, but by annihilating the very 
foundation of them — that everlasting distinction between men and 
things? To make a man a chattel, is not the punishment, but the anni. 
hilation of a human being, and, so far as it goes, of all human beings. 
This commutation of the punishment of death, into perpetual slavery, 
what a fortunate discovery ! Alas ! for the honor of Deity, if common- 
tators had not manned the forlorn hope, and rushed to the rescue of the 
Divine character at the very crisis of its fate, and, by a timely movement, 
covered its retreat from the perilous position in which inspiration had 
carelessly left it ! Here a question arises of sufficient importance for a 
separate dissertation ; but must for the present be disposed of in a few 
paragraphs. Were the Canaanites sentenced by God to indi- 
vidual AND unconditional EXTERMINATION ? That the views gene- 
rally prevalent on this subject, are wrong, we have no doubt ; but as 
the limits of this Inquiry forbid our going into the merits of the question,, 
so as to give all the grounds of dissent from the commonly received 
opinions, the suggestions made, will be thrown out merely as queries, 
and not as a formal laying down o^ doctrines. 

The leading directions as to the disposal of the Canaanites, are mainly 
in the following passages, Exod. xxiii. 23 — 33, and 33 — 51, and 34, 
11 — Deut. vii. 16 — 25, and ix. 3, and xxxi. 3, 1, 2. In these verses, 
the Israelites are commanded to " destroy the Canaanites" — to " drive 
out," — "consume," — " utterly overthrow," — " put out," — "dispossess 
them," &c. Quest. Did these commands enjoin the unconditional and 
universal destruction of the individuals, or merely of the body jjolitic? 
Ans. The Hebrew word Haram, to destroy, signifies national, as well 
as individual destruction ; political existence, equally with personal ; the 
destruction of governmental organization, equally with the lives of the 
subjects. Besides, if we interpret the words destroy, consume, over- 
throw, &c., to mean personal destruction, what meaning shall we give 
to the expressions, '* drive out before thee ;" " cast out before thee ;" 
"expel," "put out," "dispossess," &ic., which are used in the same 
passages ? 

For a clue to the sense in which the word " destroy" is used, see 
Exodus xxiii. 27. " I will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt 

10 



76 

come, and I wiu make all thine enemies turn their hacks unto thee. Hers 
" all their enemies^'' were to turn their hacks, and " all the people'^ to be 
" destroyed." Does this mean that God would let all their enemies es- 
cape, but kill all i\\e\v friends, or that he woukljtr*/. kill " all the people" 
and THEN make them turn their backs in fligiit, an army of runaway 
corpses ? 

The word rendered hacks, is in the original, necks, and the passage 
may mean, I will make all your enemies turn their necks unto you ; 
that is, be suhject to you as tributaries, become denationalized, their 
civil polity, state organization, political existence, destroyed — their idol- 
atrous temples, altars, images, groves, and all heathen rites destroyed; in a 
word, their whole system, national, political, civil, and religious, subvert- 
ed, and the whole people put under trihute. Again ; ifthese commands 
required the unconditional destruction of all the individuals of the Ca- 
naanites, the Mosaic law was at war with itself, for the directions relative 
to the treatment of native residents and sojourners, form a large part 
of it. " The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one 
born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." " If thy brother 
be waxen poor, thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or 
a sojourner, that he may live with thee." " Thou shalt not oppress a 
stranger." " Thou shalt not vex a stranger." Judge righteously be, 
tween every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him." 
" Ye shall not respect persons in judgment." "Ye shall have ono 
manner of law as well for the stranger, as for him of your own coun- 
try." We tind, also, that provision was made for them in the cities of 
refuge, Num. xxxv. 15. — t!ie gleanings of the harvest and vintage were 
assigned to them. Lev. xix. 9, 10, and xxiii. 22, and 25, 6 ; — the bles- 
sings of the Sabbath, theirs, Ex. xx. 10 ; — the privilege of offering sa- 
crifices secured, Lev. 22. 18 ; and stated religious instruction provided 
for them. Deut. xxxi. 9, 12. Now, does this sai/ie law authorize and 
appoint the individual extermination o^ those very persons, whose lives 
and general interests it so solicitously protects? These laws were 
given to the Israelites, long before they entered Canaan ; and they 
must of necessity have inferred from them, that a multitude of the in- 
habitants of the land would continue in it, under their government. 

3. We argue that these commands did not require the individual de- 
struction of the Canaanites unconditional/y, from the fact that the most 
pious Israelites never seem to have so regarded them. Joshua was se- 
lected as the leader of Israel to execute God's threatenings upon Ca- 
naan. Fie had no discretionary power. God's command's were his 



T7 

official instructions. Going beyond them would have been usurpation ; 
refusing to carry them out, rebellion and treason. For not obeying, in 
^very particular, and in a single instance, God's command respecting 
the Amalekites, Saul was rejected from being king. 

Now, if God commanded the individual destruction of all the Canaan, 
itish nations, Joshua disobeyed him in every instance. For at his death, 
the Israelites still " dwelt among them," and each nation is mentioned 
by name. See Judges i. 5, and yet we are told that " Joshua was full 
of the spirit of the Lord and of WISDOM," Deut. xxxiv. 9. (of course, 
he could not have been ignorant of the meaning of those commands,) 
—that " the Lord was with him," Josh. vi. 27 ; and that he '• left nothing 
undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses ;" and further, that he 
" took all that land." Joshua xi. 15—23. Also, that " the Lord gave 
unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers, and 
they possessed il and dwelt therein, and there stood not a man of all 
their enemies before them." « The Lord delivered all their enemies 
into their hand," &c. 

How can this testimony be reconciled with itself, if we suppose that 
the command to destroy enjoined individual extermination, and the 
command to drive oit^, enjoined the unconditional expulsion of individu- 
als from the country, rather than their expulsion from ihe possession or 
ownership of it, as the lords of the soil ? It is true, multitudes of the 
Oanaanites were slain, but in every case it was in consequence of their 
.efusing to surrender their land to the possession of the Israelites. 
Not a solitary case can be found in which a Canaanile was either killed 
or driven out of the country, who acquiesced in the transfer of the terri- 
tory of Canaan, and its sovereignty, from the inhabitants of the land to 
the Israelites. Witness the case of Rahab and all her kindred, and the 
inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim.* The 

* Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of Hahab and 
her kindred, was a violation of the command of God. We answer, if it had been, we might . 
expect soms such intimation. If God liad straitly commanded them to exterminate all the 
Canaanites, their pledge to save them alive, was neither a repeal of the statute, nor absolution 
for the breach of it. If unconditional destruction was the import of the command, would God 
have permitted such an act to pass without severe rebuke? Would he have established such 
a precedent Avhen Israel had hardly passed the threshhold of Cannan, and was then striking 
the first blow of a half century war? What if thsy had passed their word to Kahab and the 
Gibeonites? Was tiiat more binding upon them than God'd command? So Saul seems to 
have passed to word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his life 
•Saul had violated God's command. This same Saul appears to have put the same'construc- 
fion on the command to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan, that is generally put upon it now. 
We are told that he sought to slay the Gibeonites " in his zeal for the children of Israel and 
■ffu'lah." G«d sent upon. Israel a three years' famme for it. In assigning the reason. He says. 



78 

Canaanites knew of the miracles in Egypt, at the Red Sea, in the wil- 
derness, and at the passage of Jordan. They knew that their land had 
been transferred to the Israelites, as a judgment upon them for their 
sins. — See Joshua ii. 9 — 11, and ix. 9, 10, 24, Many of them were 
awed by these wonders, and made no resistance to the confiscation of 
their territory. Others fiercely resisted, defied the God of the armies 
of Israel, and came out to battle. These occupied the fortified cities, 
were the most inveterate heathen — the aristocracy of idolatry, i\\Q kings, 
the nohility and gentry, ihe priests, with their crowds of satellites, and 
retainers that aided in the performance of idolatrous rites, the military 
forces, with the chief profligates and lust-panders of both sexes. Every 
Bible student will recall many facts corroborating this supposition. Such 
as the multitudes of tri/jutaries in the midst of Israel, and that too, when 
the Israelites had " waxed strong," and the uttermost nations quaked at 
the terror of their name. The large numbers of the Canaanites, as 
well as the Philistines and others, who became proselytes, and joined 
themselves to the Hebrews — as the Nelhenims, Uriah the Hittite, one 
of David's memorable "'thirty-seven" — Rahab, who married one of the 
princes of Judah — Ittai — The six hundred Gitites — David's bodyguard, 
" faithful among the failhless." — 2 Sam. xv. 18, 21. Obededom the 
Gittite, who was adopted into the tribe of Levi. — Compare 2 Sam. vi. 
10, 11, with 1 Chron, xv. IS, and 1 Chron xxvi. 45. The cases of Jaziz, 
and Obil, — 1 Chron. xxvi. 30, 31, 33. Jephunneh, the father of Caleb 
— the Kenite, registered in the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, and 
the one hundred and fifty thousand Canaanites, employed by Solomon 
in the building of the Temple.* Add to these, the fact that the most 
memorable miracle on record, was wrought for the salvation of a portion 
of those very Canaanites, and for the destruction oftho.se who would ex- 
terminate them. — Joshua X. 12 — 14. Further — the terms used in the 
directions of God to the Israelites, regulating their disposal of the Ca- 
naanites, such as, "drive out," "put out," "cast out," "expel," "dis- 
possess," &c. seem used interchangably with " consume," " destroy," 
'•■ overthrow," &c., and thus indicate the sense in which the latter words 

" It IS for Saul and his bloody liousp, because lie slewtlie Gibconites." When David imiuired 
of them what atonement he should make, they say, "The man that consumed us, and that 
deviaed against us, thrt wc should be deslroyed from remainins in any nf the coasts of Israel, 
let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2 Samuel xxii. 1—6. 

* If the Canaanites wr re devoted by God to individual and unconditional extermination, 
lo have employed them in the erection of the temple,— -what was it but the climax of im 
'piety? As well might they pollute its a'.tari with swine's flesh, or make their sons pass 
hrough the fire to Moloch. 



79 

are used. As an illustration of the meaning generally attached to these 
and similar terms, when applied to the Canaaniles in Scripture, we refer 
the reader to the history of the Amaiekites. In Ex. xxvii. 14, God 
says, " I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under 
heaven," — In Deut. xxv. 19, " Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of 
Amalek from under heaven ; thou shalt not forget it." — In 1 Sam. xy. 
2, 3. " Smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that tliey have, and spare 
them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox 
and sheep." In the seventh and eighth verses of the same chapter, 
we are told, " Saul smote the Amaiekites, and took Agag the king 
of the Amaiekites, alive, and utterly destroyed all the people 
with the edge of the sword." In verse 20, Saul says, " I have obeyed 
the voice of the Lord, and have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, 
and have utterly destroyed the Amaiekites." 

In 1 Sam. 30lh chapter, we find the Amaiekites at war again, 
marching an army into Israel, and sweeping every ihing before them — 
and all this in hardly more than twenty years after they had all been 

UTTERLY DESTROYED ! 

Deut. XX. 16, 17, will probably be quoted against the preceding 
view. " But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God 
doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that 
breathHh : hut thou shalt utterly destroy them ; namely, the Hiltites, and 
the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Ferrizites, the, Hivitcs, and the 
Jehusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. We argue 
that this command to exterminate, did not include all the individuals of 
the Canaanitish nations, but only the inhabita nts of the cities, (and even 
those conditionally,) for the following reasons. 

I. Only the inhabitants o{ cities are specified, — "of thecfi/esofthese 
people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Tlie reasons for 
this wise discrimination were, no doubt, (1.) Cities then, as now, were 
pest-houses of vice — they reeked with abominations little practiced in 
the country. On this account, their influence would be far more pe- 
rilous to the Israelites than that of the country. (2.) These cities 
were the centres of idolatry— the residences of the priests, with their 
retinues of the baser sort. There were their temples and altars, and 
idols, without number. Even their buildings, streets, and public walks 
were so many visibilities of idolatry. The reason assigned in the 18th 
verse for exterminating them, strengthens the idea,— " «/fffi they teach 
■you not to do after all the ahominalions which they have done unto their 



80 

^ods.'^ This would be a reason for exterminating all the nations and 
individuals around them, as all were idolaters ; but God permitted, and 
even commanded them, in certain cases, to spare the inhabitants. Con- 
tact with aw?/ of them would be perilous — with the inhabitants of the 
cities peculiarly, and of the Canaanitish cities preeminently so. 

It will be seen from the 10th and 11th verses, that those cities which 
accepted the offer of peace were to be spared. " When thou earnest 
nigh unto acitytojight against it, lhe7i proclaim peace unto it. And it 
shall be, if it make thee answer of peace and open unto thee, then it shall 
he, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto 
thee, and they shall serve thee." — Deuteronomy xx. 10, 11. These 
verses contain the general rule prescribing the method in which cities 
were to be summoned to surrender. 

1. The offer of peace — if it was accepted, the inhabitants became 
tributaries — if it was rejected, and they came out against Israel in bat- 
tle, the men were to be killed, and the women and little ones saved 
alive. See Deuteronomy xx. 12, 13, 14. The 15th verse restricts 
their lenient treatment in saving the wives and httle ones of those who 
fouo-ht them, to the inhabitants of the cities afar off . The 16th verse 
gives directions for the disposal of the inhabitants of Canaanitish cities, 
after they had taken them. Instead of sparing the women and chil- 
dren, they were to save alive nothing that breathed. The common 
mistake has been, in taking it for granted, that the command in the ISth 
verse, *' Thusshalt thou do unto all the cities," &c. refers to the whole sys- 
tern of directions preceding, commencing with the 10th verse, whereas 
it manifestly refers only to the inflictions specified in the verses imme- 
diately preceding, viz. the 12th, 13th, and 14th, and thus make a dis- 
tinction between those Canaanitish cities that fought, and the cities afar 
off thai fought — in one case destroying the males and females, and in 
the other, the males only. The offer of peace, and the conditional pire- 
■servation, were as really guarantied to Canaanitish cities as to others. 
Their inhabitants were not to be exterminated unless they came out 
against Israel ih battle. But let us settle this question by the " law 
and the testimony:'' Joshua xix. 19, 20.—'' There was not a city that 
made peace with the children of Israel save the Hivites, the inhabitants of 
Gibeon ; all others they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden 
their hearts, that they should come out against Israel in battlev 
that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but 
ihat he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses." That is, if 



81 

they had not come out against Israel in battle, they would have had 
♦' favor" shown them, and would not have been " destroyed utterly." 
The great design of God seems to have been to transfer the territory 
of the Canaanites to the Israelites, and along with it, absolute sovereign- 
ty in every respect ; to annihilate their political organizations, civil polity, 
jurisprudence, and their system of religion, with all its rights and appen- 
danges ; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy, administered by 
Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and agents. Those 
who resisted the execution of Jehovah's purpose were to be killed, while 
those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared. Ail had the choice 
of these alternatives, either free egress out of the land ;* or acquies- 
cence in the decree, with life and residence as tributaries, under the 
protection of the government ; or resistance to the execution of the de- 
cree, with death. " And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently 
learn the ways of my people, to swear hyvvj name, the Lord liveth, as 
they taught my people to swear hy Baal ; then shall they be built 

IN THE MIDST OF BIY FEOPLE." 

* Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their territory at the tidings of Israel's 
approach, did God's command requirt; the Israelites to chase them to the ends of the earth, 
and hunt them down, until every Canaanite was destroyed] It is too preposterous for belief, 
and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, wiiich interprets the terms "consume,' ' 
"destroy," "destroy utterly," &c. to mean unconditional individual extennination. 



[The preceding Inquiry is merely an outline. Whoever reads it, 
needs no such information. Its original design embraced a much 
wider range of general topics, and subordinate heads, besides an Inquiry 
into the teachings of the New Testament on the same subject. To 
have filled up the outline, in conformity with the plan upon which it 
was sketched, would have swelled it to a volume. Much of the fore- 
going has therefore been thrown into the form of a mere skeleton of 
heads, or rather a series of indices, to trains of thought and classes of 
proof, which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some 
facilities to those who have little leisure for minute and protracted inves- 
tigation.] 



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